> On Mar 2, 2015, at 4:22 PM, Andrey Chernov <ache_at_freebsd.org> wrote: > >> On 02.03.2015 22:55, Julian Elischer wrote: >>> On 3/2/15 5:27 AM, Alfred Perlstein wrote: >>> >>> >>>> On 3/2/15 4:14 AM, Julian Elischer wrote: >>>>> On 3/1/15 10:49 AM, Harrison Grundy wrote: >>>>> Thanks! >>>>> >>>>> That does seem useful, but I'm not sure I see the reasoning behind >>>>> putting into base, over a port or package, since processing XML in base >>>>> is a pain, and it can't serve up JSON or HTML without additional >>>>> utilities anyway. >>>>> >>>>> (If I'm reviving a long-settled thing, let me know and I'll drop it. >>>>> I'm >>>>> trying to understand the use case for this.) >>>> >>>> To me it would almost seem more useful to have a programmable filter >>>> for which you could produce >>>> parse grammars to parse the output of various programs.. >>>> thus >>>> >>>> ifconfig -a | xmlize -g ifconfig | your-favourite-xml-parser >>>> with a set of grammars in /usr/share/xmlize/ >>>> then we could use it for out-of-tree programs as well if we wrote >>>> grammars for them.. >>>> >>>> The sentiment of machine-readable output is nice, but I think it's >>>> slightly off target. >>>> we shouldn't have to change all out utilities, and it isn't going to >>>> help at all with 3rd party apps, >>>> e.g. samba stuff. A generally easy to program output grammar parser >>>> would be truely useful. >>>> and not just for FreeBSD. >>>> >>>> I've been watching with an uncomfortable feeling, but it's taken me a >>>> while to put my >>>> finger on what it was.. >>> Are you sure it's not the hairs on the back of your neck standing up >>> due to NIH? >>> >>> Juniper has been doing this for years and it's very useful for them. >> I'm not saying the ability to generate machine readable output is wrong, >> but that the 'unix way' would be to make a filter for it. It seems that >> the noisy people don't >> agree with me so I will not stand in the way of progress.. > > I agree. Even if someone starts with json and xml only, it will need > some 3rd format soon, and adding any new format have real possibility to > break all already existent (like adding json+xml breaks plain text in > pipes). Moreover, it violates Unix principle 'one tool == one general > function' and lots of other rules like Eric Raymond ones, making each > program looks like systemd. It makes harder to merge changes from other > BSDs too. > Proper way to do this thing is to back out all changes and write > completely separate templates-based parser - xml/json writer. Read the library. It doesn't care what output format it needs. It is up to the translation layer to do it. You could even do a csv format or most any other structured output format without changing the userland utils. > > -- > http://ache.vniz.net/ > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe_at_freebsd.org" >Received on Tue Mar 03 2015 - 00:30:33 UTC
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