Xml tutorial

HaVoC

I'm doing a http framework for piping different language to each other.
I need to represent data in an xml document (i think) problem is I have no idea of xml of even if its the right technology to use any help would be cool

jessy

this tutorial should get you started on XML
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp

Tell me a bit more about the project. (just a basic spec)

HaVoC

A Process Pipeline Framework
The basic idea of this project involves the fact that a pipeline represents a flexible way of constructing a process. The output of each component/service on the pipeline is the input to the next component/service. All communication is asynchronous. Each component/service on the pipeline is technology/language independent. So that pipeline could consist of an authentication service written in Java, a transaction processing service written in Python, etc. Processes are constructed dynamically at runtime and each process is uniquely identified using a URI. The dynamic nature of the process construction and the late binding allows for interception/intermediaries and flexible maintenance and evolution. This project must adhere to the REST architectural style constraints.

thats what i'm going on

jessy

if your just hoping to store the output of one process, and feed it as input to the next process, then XML is the way to go.

HaVoC

Reading up on xml now DTD seem the way to go still have to read about DOM though.What’s the best language to pair with xml anyway I’m fairly ok at java but I have to justify my choice. So just wondering what the competition is like?

Evil Phil

I would say "fairly okay with java" justifies using Java. Any other language that may have advantages over Java when it comes to XML will have the disadvantage your having to learn said language (unless of course you already know it).

tendofan

IMO DTD's aren't as good as xml schemas for specifying the contents of your XML files, though the facilities they provide may be sufficient for your needs. However if your pipeline is configurable then maybe you oughtn't strictly define the input/export formats.

As for language support; I really like the .NET framework's XML handling, SAX and DOM parsing are both handled simply, and XPath support is good. I'm afraid I can't say much about XML in Java.

Tendofan

HaVoC

If i can i probably do the framework in java. I have to do proof of concept as well so i'll probabaly use .net for that, i think C# sound cool and maybe some perl or php

madramor

STEP1
first thing is to design the dtd/schema for the framework
you could have a

general REQUEST dtd and this would be used to format the data, that would be sent to each process, and a corresponding RESPONSE dtd whcih describes the format of the returned xml.
or
each process could have its own set of REQUEST dtd and RESPONSE dtd

STEP2
this is how program should work
1: get starting input
2: calculate list of processes on the pipeline
3: make a http connectin to the first process on the pipeline
4: send the xml over http to the process
5: read the response from the http connection
6: process the xml read in 5
7: repeat steps 4-5 for all steps

step 6 will involve using xml parsers

you don't care how the processes work internally just like black box testing

tempest

To be honest, most popular languages have great support for xml these days. XML is used for industry standard data interchange, and as such if a language wants to be taken seriously in industry (which most do), then they need to have good xml support.
DOM and SAX are standards. The API's are well defined and good so the language shouldn't matter as long as it supports DOM and SAX. If you are using xml schema and you want the best schema validation then go with Java and Xerces. Xerces is a _fully_ conformant xml schema validating parser and it's lightening fast.
I would consider using SOAP to construct the pipeline as web services. This removes some of the burden from you, by leveraging existing technology which doesn't sound a million miles from what you want. It frees you up to concentrate on building the pipelining engine and concentrate on making it more robust. web services can be deployed in many languages also, so it gives you that kind of independance also.

Just a suggestion, as it may not fit the project... Good luck

HaVoC

i can use soap but i would have to support it with a world of documentation why REST is crap!
A sub project of Xerces look very cool NekoStyle
i'm actually looking for existing systems at the moment part of dam documentation :rolleyes:
i came up with the above and Apache cocoon, amazon and google are supposed be have done something REST like.
Anyone know any of existing sytems?