Re: any suggestions for reading in a XML file?

[Sergei Steshenko]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
> To: Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 7:31 PM
> Subject: Re: any suggestions for reading in a XML file?
> 
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 09:13:37AM -0800, Philip Nienhuis wrote:
>>  indium wrote
>>  > Dear all,
>>  > 
>>  > From the io-1.0.20 I understand that reading an xml file is not yet
>>  > implemented.
>>  > <snip>
>> 
>>  In the io package (Octave-Forge) there's an xmlread and an xmlwrite
>>  function.
>>  A bit of a problem is that they are too sparsely documented and -as the
>>  creator disappeared from sight-hitherto unmaintained.
>> 
>>  If you feel sufficiently proficient in C++ you could have a look; and maybe
>>  maintain those functions?
>> 
>>  Philip
>> 
> 
> Dear Philip, dear others,
> 
> I have very little C and no C++ experience. That's why I hoped to do it in 
> octave itself.
> 
> The suggestion of going via python/perl/java seems to me not the way to go, 
> since it implies a cross-dependence of any changes on the interpreter side 
> combined with any future Octave changes.
> 
> My pragmatic approach at the moment is to grep/awk out the pieces that I want 
> and write out temporary files that are easily readable inside octave. Those 
> tools are less prone to fail due to version changes than interpreters like 
> perl/python/java.
> 
> If I manage to solve my problem on the structure (as in my original post), 
> then 
> I'll post it here.
> 
> I'm sorry not to be able to contribute on the C++ level.
> 
> 
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"My pragmatic approach at the moment is to grep/awk out the pieces that I want 
and write out temporary files that are easily readable inside octave. Those 
tools are less prone to fail due to version changes than interpreters like 
perl/python/java."

- up to you, but your approach is much more error-prone because XML is not a 
line-oriented format.

OTOH, in, say, Perl XML parser exists for years, comes with a test suite, etc. 
It is also very widely used, e.g. to build other libraries (I know this because 
I'm routinely building from source a lot of stuff), so it's unlikely it has 
major bugs.

By the way, there is an 'expat'-based XML parser for Perl too.

Perl XML parsers are maintained, look at release dates.

Regards,
  Sergei.