On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 12:16:52AM +0100, James Wilkinson wrote: > Nifty Hat Mitch wrote: > > A pile of notes sounds like a pile of text files. .... > > Organize them .. > > Edit them .... > > If you want to think about fields use an XML/HTML sort of structure to > > tag blocks of text and key words. .... > Great idea. > > I'd question, though, whether XML isn't overkill for this sort of > application. If the original poster just wants to organise things > consistently, something like an e-mail might be better. For example: It is true that XML is more than he needs. However the notion of adding markup and structure is the real hint. Yes email style single line headers can be much simpler to parse with awk and such. > Title: The Art of Unix Programming > URL: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html > Keywords: Unix, philosophy > > Eric Raymond discusses some of the Unix traditions and mindset. He shows > where and why it has been successful, and gives good advice on how to > work with the Unix world-view. > > His chapter on designing Unix file formats is well worth reading. Quote: > "The most serious problem with XML is that it doesn't play well with > traditional Unix tools. Software that wants to read an XML format needs > an XML parser; This is a good hint... > I know you're advising a simplified ML format, but it seems to me that > you might as well go for XML (and get the benefit of XML programs, which > will be overkill for the original poster), or go for something simple > that works well with Unix line-oriented tools (grep and cut, in > particular). We agree. I was just thinking about a simplified markup strategy. There is little difference between: Title: The Art of Unix Programming and <Title> The Art of Unix Programming </Title> As long as the structure is simple it is easy to parse, slice and dice. Full boat XML can follow. If you go the other way shifting to XML becomes more work. XML toolkits are getting common. Now to learn how to use them... PS: Does any one have trouble with my postings if they read mail via outlook express and an exchange server? -- T o m M i t c h e l l /dev/dull where insight begins.
