On Wed, 2007-01-10 at 10:08, VE5ZX wrote:
> I have parsed and visually inspect many XML files. They are just as easy to
> visually read as Cabrillo - perhaps even simpler because the physical
> location of characters in a field is usually of little concern. Have a look
> at any XML file in a browser and you can see how simple it is to read.
I would respectfully disagree...
Now, I'm not saying XML is necessarily *hard* to parse visually. It
could, after all, be a termcap file<grin>!
It would seem to me a consistent location of the characters in a field
is an *advantage* for human readers. Maybe not for a file with a small
number of records, but when there are 500 Q's in my log I don't need
<CALL_WORKED>W1AW</CALL_WORKED) to know the 7th column contains the call
of the station I worked. We know the "rules" - the XML tags are clutter
that really doesn't impart any knowledge to the human reader.
They are of course necessary for a computer to parse the file. Cabrillo
accomplishes this through the template.
XML ignores physical newlines. A single QSO could occupy a single
line. Or there could be a separate line for each element. Or you could
put the entire contest on a single line, with only the </QSO> (or
whatever) tag to indicate where one QSO ends and the next begins. This
means that things like
DO
INPUT #1,X$
UNTIL EOF(1)
or the Perl WHILE(<>) construct
don't work. XML likewise doesn't allow things like
$callsign=substr($qso,17,8); . If your language has an XML parser - and
you understand how to use it - that may not be such a big deal. Not all
languages have a parser.
> Opening an XML file in Excel 2003 is very simple. Just select the file and
> open it. Excel will give you some choices as to how you want the file opened
> for inspection and manipulation. The same cannot be said for ADIF or
> Cabrillo.
Cabrillo can be opened as a CSV text file. Specify fixed-width and
click where you want the columns separated.
I seem to recall ADIF is very similar to XML in most respects - might it
even *be* XML? I faced a rather complicated project trying to import a
huge block of ADIF data from my old logging program, mainly because of
ADIF's casual treatment of newlines.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com
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