Is XML right for me?

[skiflyer]

I'm a bit baffled on XML... have used it before, but only in maintaining some... now I need to consider if it's the best solution for my problems... please bare with the explanation and let me know if I'm evening remotely in the right place.

Right now I'm using an ini file, I keep track of products and versions and some other stuff... as such...

[product]
version=1.1.1.1
allow=105.103.10.10;105.105.10.10-105.106.10.10
block=105.105.10.15-105.105.10.20

And I read this file, which contains the most recent version only, and then see if a supplied IP address is allowed to have it or not.

Now, I need additional functionality... now the file needs to have several versions of the same product, each with their own allow and block lists, and then I need to find the most recent version applicable to a given IP address.

My first thought is a database... but that's serious overkill... we're talking 2-5 products, with 2-3 versions each at any given time... maybe double or triple the versions (but very rarely ).

So in my mind flashes...

<product>
<version>
<allowed>
<blocked>
</version>
<version>
<allowed>
<blocked>
</version>
<version>
<allowed>
<blocked>
</version>
</product>

I'm reading this file myself, programatically, and the allow lists can specificy ranges, so I'm sure it's not going to be as easy as I like, but I figure there'll be some ways... not IE or some such... is XML going to be a good way to do this? Or will I be needlessly burying myself with XML standards and hence should just build my own Text File format? Is an XSL stylesheet even going to come into play? If XML is a good idea do you have any suggestions on web sites for me?

My two points of access will be creating the file with PHP, and reading it with VB.

Thanks for any and all advice.

-Rob

 

[palbano]

I've been using XML exclusively now for 2 years for any data related IO that falls short of demanding a database. Even then we have put XML into database columns.

You will need time to get up to speed with the DOM and XPath and maybe some XSL(T) but then its all down hill from there. XML will cover all ur data needs and them some.

We use it for desktop data storage, server configuration, socket message protocol, there's almost no limit to what you can do.

Good luck
-pete