DPS Initial Ideas

[Thomas Sparrevohn]

Well - Naturally if the only index format was based upon XML it would not be
very practical -
However XML currently seems to take the lead when the talk is on portability
as a data format 
and it is very easy to convert to "Pure Text" - There seems to be a bias
towards SNMP MIB format
generally in FreeBSD e.g. sysctl etc. which has even worse drawbacks 

But as I said - I very much doubt that the format of the INDEX file and the
on disk package db
structure is the most burning issue for ports - I am sure that there are
optimisations that could improve
the current performance without having to change the structure into SQL - If
however that is the target
then XML would be a significantly better candidate because a proper XML
schema can be used as a 
middle layer for all the tools - regardless the storage structure of the
package db etc. - 
If we introduced a proper abstraction - then people can use SQL/ flat files
/ existing structures
But the tools we still only need one common interface to XML



   

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Lutz [mailto:mail at maxlor.com]
> Sent: 13 May 2007 19:42
> To: freebsd-hackers at freebsd.org
> Cc: Thomas Sparrevohn; Michel Talon
> Subject: Re: DPS Initial Ideas
> 
> On Sunday 13 May 2007 13:58, Thomas Sparrevohn wrote:
> > Using XML for INDEX are a very good idea mainly because it allows
> > "ports" to interface in an easy way to external tools - e.g. java
> > frontends - web browsers etc, etc. However there are drawbacks - Yet
> I
> > feel that the discussion about what tool to use as indexing are
> > completely misplaced if the only point is that somebody likes SQL
> > better than a  directory tree.
> 
> I'd have said that using XML for INDEX is a bad idea, because INDEX can
> then no longer be easily processed with any of the tools in the FreeBSD
> base system. With the format it uses now, I can easily grep, awk, etc
> it. If you need an XML version of INDEX, it's easy to have just these
> tools build one for you though.
> 
> Not to mention that INDEX is already big enough as it is, imo. I don't
> see why it should be bloated even more with redundant information.
> 
> Cheers
> Benjamin