XML-java-XML?

[andyae]

Hi!

My name is Andreas Ek and I'm about to do a Java-application that reads a XML document and displays the contents. This content is supposed to be in form, with blank forms to be filled in. After filling them in the application should genetate a new XML-document including the changes.
The application is supposed to read a XML in various length and structure. To do this can I use SAX only or do I have to use JDOM or JATO or something else? Im not a pro programmer and not wery familiar with XML but I can handle it. I'd like the application to be rather fast, because it supposed to run on PocketPC, so maybe JDOM and JATO takes too much resources?! Is it really professional to use JATO and JDOM? Please give me advise about some of these and maybe some other techniques.

 

[Miros]

I'm working on this too!

Glad to see there's another crazy person in the world.

I'm planning the following:

One XML file will contain a list of fields which should appear on the form, the type of field (text, radio, combobox), the default values, etc. Other groups of XML files will reference this file and contain the actual data. Possibly a schema file can handle this, but I'm not sure yet.

I'm going to use Lark/Larval. I'm pretty sure I can do it in SAX mode.

You can email me at miros1@iwon.com if you want to discuss this more.

Personally, I think "professional" is a meaningless buzzword. If it's reliable (i.e. you'd trust it with your own hand-typed, irreplaceable data), has a decent interface, and isn't quirky, use it.

Rose/Miros

 

[Miros]

I'm going to answer your email here, since my email doesn't seem to want to talk to your email...


Why I think no one else is doing this (or at least not talking about it):
I've posted similar things in various forums, both on tek-tips and other
boards, and never got back a response.

I picked Lark because: 1) it's Java, 2) it's got an optional validating
feature (Larval), 3) it has the "standard" SAX style interface, and 4) it's
free. We're a startup business; right now money is tight, so free is important!

For more info: there's a free XML magazine, available through

http://www.xmlmag.com.

Now for how I'm attacking the project:

Due to money constraints, we will probably have to use free websites for
data repositories temporarily. This should be fairly safe since our data
is virtually useless (and meaningless) to anyone else and I intend to do
periodic backups of it. This means a simple "read" of the file so people
can work on it and an "ftp" to upload the changed data. There's probably
an ftp library to do the upload for me; however, I'm taking a Networks class,
so I'm writing the code myself. It's pretty simple and I should have that
part of it done in a couple days.

Once I have the file uploading and downloading as chunks of text, I'll start
parsing the data files (both the "data" file and the "format" file) to build
and populate controls in my Java application. As I said, I'm thinking of
putting all the information for control construction in one file and putting
the real data in another file which will contain a reference to the "format"
file.

Of course, this little editor is just a support program for the real project:
an online MUD using XML for client-server communication via a communications
package called Jabber!

Rose

-- Original Message --

>Hi!
>
>Thank you for your reply! So you dont think there is anyone else that has
>made this kind of thing?! Where can I get more information you think? May
>I
>ask why you want to use Lark, is it better then other "tools"? Give me
some
>arguments why to use Lark and I should be greatful.
>Thank you for your interest and help.
>/A.E
>

 

[Miros]

By the way, I've got the code done to download a file, allow the user to change it, and upload it again.

Time to write the XML part!

Rose/Miros

 

[tiz]

I'm using Resin from Caucho.com as my servlet engine and SAX to parse my XML files. Also, for XSL I use Xerces and am in the process of writing a wrapper servlet for serving the conents of my site in xhtml and wml.

I also have found little information on the web and other lists about this sort of thing, surprised to find this one!

Maybe we should start a collection of helpful source code,

Tim --
Tim <tim@planetedge.co.uk>