[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: so many options no idea where to begin
Oh, a lovely discussion, full of background. Enough so that I can leave out bits of context and perhaps earn an entirely undeserved reputation for terseness ... *laugh* On Tue, 2002-07-30 at 20:24, Rick Jones wrote: > yet another newbie stumbles into the maze of twisty TLA's all similar > but different... xyzzy Nothing happens. > (I never went as far as XDR, not sure why - I guess that doesn't matter > now though...) An unconscious instinct for self-preservation, perhaps? > i'm looking to have test suites be "plugins" (without full knowledge yet > of what that may mean :) - which means that the base netperf may not > know quite how to grok test-specific config info for a new test suite. > > a test instance would be in a number of "states" in its lifetime: > > new - the thread for the test instance was created > init - the test is initialized and read to start > load - the test is generating load > measure - the test is measuring its generated load > > there would be messages passed between netperf and netserver to cause > thse things to occur - there may also be other things like a kill > message to kill a test with extreme predjudice and perhaps a request for > intermediate results. some messages are of things completely known to > netperf, some are likely to be rather test-specific. there is to be a > single TCP connection between a netperf and a netserver overwhich will > be multiplexed comms for the individual test instances living within > that netserver. Could I suggest that you take a look at the construction of Jabber? There's an excellent (O'Reilly zoo) book on the subject. In particular, the way that Jabber associates a namespace with a module is unique in my experience, but might meet your needs quite nicely. It's a very different take on the use of namespaces (and it has to be said that the distributed code doesn't do a terribly spec-compliant job on namespaces; change the prefix of the root element to anything other than "stream" and it barfs all over your shoes). I won't completely recommend it, but I think that you ought to look at it, as an inspirational text .... Jabber config files address the same problem: independently written modules, which may even operate on different machines, but for which configuration should be centralized. > <!-- I would like to be able to include a file of just test and server > elements without a containing <netperf></netperf> --> > > <xi:include href="sub.xml" /> Whether inclusion works as planned may depend upon the processor used to parse the instance. Check on what's available; you might find (for instance) that the tools available in Python supply your needs, and that the language is available on all platforms likely to use netperf. > having become totally confused by C++ several times, and wanting more > low-level control over sockets than I understand is available in Java, > and wanting to use things like libcurl for the FTP and HTTP i would like > to stick with C (perhaps that shows my age :) i have come across libxml > from the gnome folks - haven't gone quite as far as gdome2 yet though, > peeked only a little at SOAP and am not sure I want to go that far just > yet. Daniel's a regular on this list, so perhaps he'll say something about how well libxml2 suits your purposes. > using XML as the output format of the benchmark appears appealing - the > stuff I wrote to parse netperf2 output for the netperf database was, > well, quaint. Take a quick look at ant, especially its optional junit task. No, I'm not suggesting a unit testing framework, but the junit task generates XML output, which is then transformed via stylesheet into a really lovely tree. Moreover, the XML is still there, for further transformation (as accumulation of data, or run comparisons ... just another stylesheet). > *) i'm not sure when one "should" use attributes versus a nested element Controversial. Using DTD-defined XML, the only things that *could* have types were attributes. Not true for XSDL-defined, or even RNG-defined. There's a tendency among some to suggest "element-normal" presentation: use an element for the "main" content; use attributes only for meta-information. So <measure units="cm">123</measure>. On the other hand, I've written entire XML languages (for populating a database, as it happens) that had no element content. Everything done in attributes (and with kindness ...). > *) my config files may become quite large - XInclude sounds interesting, > but a fully formed file XIncluded (at least via libxml) has the whole > file as a sub-element when what I really want (I think anyway) is the > elements in the file being included be at the same depth as the include > itself (ie up one level) XLink replace. Or just live with inclusion semantics. > *) since I am interested in things like doubles and 64-bit integers and > such i think i want to use XML schemas (?) but those seem to be still > rather new and not part of libxml - are they part of any other C-based > offering. May I point out that XML is text? So it really doesn't matter. You can define it, in your application, as <element type="long-long"> and nobody else has to care. Type definition is a seriously painful topic, because XML's text representation doesn't really correspond to the binary representation of a double or float, even using IEEE 754. You're *going* to convert. If you were sending this information around to other W3C XML Schema-aware applications, then you'd have a real need to use the types defined by W3C XML Schema. Since you're using the types where they need to turn into types (XSLT isn't going to perform special actions based on types, not this year, anyway), you''ve no requirement to conform to the truly limping and incomprehensible collection of type collections defined in XSDL. Do it in the application. > *) when someone adds a new test suite, I'd like them to be able to > include a validator (schema?) that will be [expletive deleted]-in to the main config > file. however, i'm concerned about what I read about namespaces (which I > think I may need/want to avoid name conflicts) and validation, and it > seems that the validators have to be all specified at the top of a > document? So define each test as a separate document. Validate independently. Use XLink/XInclude to stitch together; use document() to produce aggregated reports via XSLT. > i'm sure that my questions show just how little I really understand > about all this, so please be gentle :) Heh. No, you ask really *nice* questions. Your questions can be answered. Given the way that the questions are phrased, I can feel confident that an answer that isn't an answer, just a pointer at resources for you to find the answer, is still potentially useful. "I'm new, could someone explain XML?" is a hard one .... Amy! -- Amelia A. Lewis amyzing@t... alicorn@m... I have spent nights with matches and knives, leaning over ledges, only two flights up. Cutting my heart, burning my soul. Nothing left to hold. Nothing left, but blood and fire. -- Indigo Girls This is a digitally signed message part
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|