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xml processing

xml processing

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Posted by

Ogomez92 (42 posts)

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Date

Thu 23 Sep 2010 04:22 PM (UTC)

Message

Hello,
I need a simple way to read/write/search xml files from within mushclient. I would use sqlite, but I don't think it's worth it for an equipment database, and I think I would rather use xml.
Any ideas?
Thanks :)

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Posted by

Worstje Netherlands (899 posts)

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Date

Reply #1 on Thu 23 Sep 2010 05:05 PM (UTC)

Message

Let me be polite, and call you out on your BS before you get too far down the path to be insulted by any such opinion. :)

XMLs strength is that it is universal and can be interpreted by a lot of different applications for a lot of different purposes. It's primary purpose is as a go-between, and not for things where you'd like 'high' performance with reading and writing data. For anything involving a lot of live, changing data, it is the wrong format. While many people think of XML as a database, it is not a database. It can be made to hold the structure of one, but that is where it ends.

Depending on what you want/need, a database may be what you want. If you want persisting equipment across sessions, sqlite is indeed a good way to go. However, merely using lua tables which you serialize and deserialize at the proper times may be a far easier and more flexible way to start out, as you do not need queries and everything will be native to your scripting language (assuming you use Lua, which I am assuming since it is what most people use.)

Summary: do yourself a favor, and forget about XML. If anything is not worth the effort for your purpose, it is XML.

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Posted by

Ogomez92 (42 posts)

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Date

Reply #2 on Thu 23 Sep 2010 05:36 PM (UTC)

Message

Lua tables, good point. I shall investigate into that. Thanks.

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Posted by

Worstje Netherlands (899 posts)

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Date

Reply #3 on Thu 23 Sep 2010 07:20 PM (UTC)

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Make sure to check out the different topics in the Lua section. There's a fair few topics dedicated to ways one can use and abuse tables.

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Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (22,975 posts)

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Date

Reply #4 on Fri 24 Sep 2010 12:49 AM (UTC)

Amended on Fri 24 Sep 2010 12:50 AM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message

SQLite3 isn't that bad. See this page:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=9241

On that I create a database, add some stuff, and read it back, in about 35 lines of code.

Worstje is right though, for small to medium cases, simple Lua tables are fine (you can serialize with various methods described in the Lua section).

However for a lot of data, or to share between multiple world files (eg. multiple characters on one MUD) then you might find that the SQL database is faster to load up, and easier to share.

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

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