From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 21 05:49:47 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E035EFBF for ; Wed, 21 May 2014 05:49:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from udns.ultimateDNS.NET (ultimatedns.net [209.180.214.225]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8843C2BA0 for ; Wed, 21 May 2014 05:49:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from udns.ultimateDNS.NET (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by udns.ultimateDNS.NET (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id s4L5q2F6037132; Tue, 20 May 2014 22:52:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bsd-lists@bsdforge.com) Received: (from www@localhost) by udns.ultimateDNS.NET (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) id s4L5pu9w037126; Tue, 20 May 2014 22:51:56 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bsd-lists@bsdforge.com) Received: from udns.ultimatedns.net ([209.180.214.225]) (UDNSMS authenticated user chrish) by ultimatedns.net with HTTP; Tue, 20 May 2014 22:51:57 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <2ac30e8c9d22b09dacb4446722a5b61e.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> In-Reply-To: <537C335C.3060105@mu.org> References: <49E9736E-AD14-4647-8B15-30603D01360C@mail.bg> <91FE2526-F21C-42AB-BECB-058DBA975A9E@cederstrand.dk> <537C2993.1060206@mu.org> <537C335C.3060105@mu.org> Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 22:51:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: [GSoC] Machine readable output from userland utilities From: "Chris H" To: "Alfred Perlstein" User-Agent: UDNSMS/2.0.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Erik Cederstrand , Chris H X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 05:49:48 -0000 > > On 5/20/14, 9:58 PM, Chris H wrote: >>> >>> Basically the idea would be to write a simple tool that is able to >>> extract using an xpath or json selector. >>> >>> Example (very rough code): >>> >>> ifconfig --output xml | selector --format xml --path /name --path >>> /name/etheraddr | \ >>> while read name ether ; do >>> echo "Interface $name has hardware address $ether" ; >>> done >>> >>> In all seriousness though, the real target is people writing higher >>> level languages (than shell) on top of FreeBSD. Perhaps python or ruby >>> spawning a utility and then that utility making the output easy to read. >>> >>> One thing to note is that the output should not just be formatted but >>> normalized as well. The fact that "uptime" can emit 15 different >>> formats for the uptime string is terrible for people coding on top of >>> the base utils, the json/xml/other output should be decided on some form >>> of normalized data likely in seconds + microseconds or something, but >>> anything truly machine readable is better than the current output when >>> popen'd by a webapp. >>> >>> -Alfred >> Greetings, all. >> I may be getting into this thread a bit late in the game. But if I >> understand the gist of this correctly; isn't all this pretty much what >> Perl was intended for? >> >> All the best. > > I can't tell if you're late or early since the connection is breaking > up, but from what I can make out you're stuck in 1997. LOL. That's good. :) I'm clearly missing something -- no, not the 21st century. ;) But just for the record; I meant nothing negative by my assertion. It just /seemed/ like Perl would/could be capable. --Chris > > -Alfred > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >