[GSoC] Machine readable output from userland utilities

[Jonathan Anderson]

On 23 May 2014, at 13:34, Adrian Chadd <adrian at freebsd.org> wrote:
> I'd actually prefer that some library API (like what's in libstatfoo)
> gets fleshed out to cover what hooks and options are required so you
> don't have to have the bikeshed argument of "what format." You only
> need to write some code to output it in the format you want.
> 
> The UNIX way is tools, not policy. The library is a policy, sure, but
> it's a policy to let you define your own policies. It won't be locking
> anyone into anything like "json or bust."
> 
> So how about the focus be on that, rather than trying to teach
> individual tools about individual encoding types?


I think that's pretty much what the proposal says:

> I'm planning to create a unified output abstraction in the form of a
> library. The tools supporting the machine-readable output feature
> will write output exclusively using the library. The exact output format
> will be customizable. Several backend libraries (like libucl and libnv)
> can be used to implement different formats.

Am I perhaps misunderstanding you, and you're actually saying "let's not get distracted by bikesheds, the proposal is terrific as-is"?


Jon
--
Jonathan Anderson

jonathan at FreeBSD.org
http://freebsd.org/~jonathan/