do you know xml ?

Code:

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<report entireList="False">
                <computer  computerName="jamie" computerOS="Windows 2000 (NT 5.0.2195)" reportCreated="6/8/02 13:05:35" userLoggedOn="jamie">
                        <computerHardware>
                                <cpu>
                                <cpuNumberOfCPUs>1</cpuNumberOfCPUs>
                                <cpuProcessorLevel>Intel Pentium Pro, II, III or 4</cpuProcessorLevel>
                                <cpuProcessorRevision>Model 8, Stepping 3</cpuProcessorRevision>
                                <cpuProcessorSpeed>646 MHz</cpuProcessorSpeed>
                                <cpuProcessorType>Pentium</cpuProcessorType>
                                </cpu>
                                <drives>
                                        <drive>
                                                <driveName>A:\</driveName>
                                                <driveSort>Removable drive</driveSort>
                                                <driveLabel>NoName</driveLabel>
                                                <driveSerial>0000-0000</driveSerial>
                                                <driveSize>0 Bytes</driveSize>
                                                <driveFree>0 Bytes</driveFree>
                                                <driveUsed>0 Bytes</driveUsed>
                                                <driveType>Removable drive</driveType>
                                        </drive>
                                        <drive>
                                                <driveName>C:\</driveName>
                                                <driveSort>Fixed drive</driveSort>
                                                <driveLabel>LOCAL DISK</driveLabel>
                                                <driveSerial>137A-10F8</driveSerial>
                                                <driveSize>12,054,659,072 Bytes</driveSize>
                                                <driveFree>462,921,728 Bytes</driveFree>
                                                <driveUsed>11,591,737,344 Bytes</driveUsed>
                                                <driveType>Fixed drive</driveType>
                                        </drive>
                                        <drive>
                                                <driveName>E:\</driveName>
                                                <driveSort>CD-ROM drive</driveSort>
                                                <driveLabel>NoName</driveLabel>
                                                <driveSerial>0000-0000</driveSerial>
                                                <driveSize>0 Bytes</driveSize>
                                                <driveFree>0 Bytes</driveFree>
                                                <driveUsed>0 Bytes</driveUsed>
                                                <driveType>CD-ROM drive</driveType>
                                        </drive>
                                </drives>
                                <memory>
                                        <memoryFreeMemory>106,500 KBytes</memoryFreeMemory>
                                        <memoryPercentUsed>59 %</memoryPercentUsed>
                                        <memoryTotalMemory>261,552 KBytes</memoryTotalMemory>
                                </memory>
                                <printers>
                                        <printerInfo>Fax</printerInfo>
                                        <printerInfo>\\NTSERVER\HP LaserJet 5P/5MP (HP)</printerInfo>
                                </printers>
                        </computerHardware>
                        <installedApplications>
                                <DisplayName>              Adobe Acrobat 4.0, 5.0</DisplayName>
                                <DisplayVersion>5.0</DisplayVersion>
                                <InstallLocation>C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0</InstallLocation>
                                <Publisher>Adobe Systems, Inc.</Publisher>
                                <UninstallString>C:\WINDOWS\ISUNINST.EXE -f"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.isu" -c"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.dll"</UninstallString>
                                <URLInfoAbout>http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/main.html</URLInfoAbout>
                                <DisplayName>              AOL Instant Messenger (SM)</DisplayName>
                                <DisplayVersion></DisplayVersion>
                                <InstallLocation></InstallLocation>
                                <Publisher></Publisher>
                                <UninstallString>C:\Program Files\AIM95\uninstll.exe -LOG= C:\Program Files\AIM95\install.log -OEM=</UninstallString>
                                <URLInfoAbout></URLInfoAbout>

etc. etc.

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Just wondering, If I'm recording, the computer name, OS, installed applications, some hardware info, how should it be laid out in an xml file ?
I've ****all experience with XML...

So I was thinking, the first part there <computer blah= ....>, originally that was :

Code:

---

<computer>
      <computerName>jamie</computerName>
      <computerOS>Windows 2000 (NT 5.0.2195)</computerOS>
      <reportCreated>6/8/02 13:05:35</reportCreated>
      <userLoggedOn>jamie</userLoggedOn>

      <computerHardware>
            <cpu>
                  ...

---

But well... both look sorta correct.
So I'm not sure which one to go with.
And as there is loads of other information I have to record, just wondering what's the proper way ?

Quote:

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Originally posted by plenderj
[Bdo you know xml ?[/B]

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No. :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by rjlohan


No. :)

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scruttox

Jamie,

AFAIK both of those methods are 'proper' in the sense of being syntactically correct. I lean towards the

Code:

---

<computer>
    <name>jim</name>
  <os>Dos3</os>
</computer>

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rather than the

Code:

---

<computer name="jim">
....

---

approach.

At least one XML ingestor that I know of, can't extract the data from inside the tag in the first place so one is forced to use the other method; that might just be an oversight though and could get fixed I guess.

The way I've seen the data in the tag explained in tutorials it makes me think it's differentiating between similar types of data like a home- and office-phone, thusly...

Code:

---

<customer>
    <phone type="home">555-1234</phone>
    <phone type="work">555-9999</phone>
</customer>

---

It's a sort of meta-data rather than normal-data...

Hmmm thanks for the reply jim.
I think I'll stick with enclosing things inside tags then, instead of putting things in as a parameter inside a tag, as in your first example.

One problem I noticed though is that if the is the '&' character, it ****s things up, unless thats in as a parameter.
But afaik, I can just use the CDATA thang for that

And here's another way of doing it ...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ksxml_30rw.asp

I think that the XML could stand a bit of normalisation...for example, number of CPUs is an attribute of Hardware, not of an individual CPU.

e.g.

Code:

---

<computerHardware>
<hardwareNumberOfCPUs>1</hardwareNumberOfCPUs>
  <cpu>
      <cpuProcessorLevel>Intel Pentium Pro, II, III or 4</cpuProcessorLevel>
      <cpuProcessorRevision>Model 8, Stepping 3</cpuProcessorRevision>
        <cpuProcessorSpeed>646 MHz</cpuProcessorSpeed>
        <cpuProcessorType>Pentium</cpuProcessorType>
      </cpu>

---

Hope this helps,
Duncan

So you don't think I should go with the whole approach of using data as parameters :

<cpu number="1" cpuProcessorLevel="Intel Pentium Pro, II, III or 4" cpuProcessorRevision="Model 8, Stepping 3" ... />

Actually - I do prefer that second method...

Uhn. Back to square one.
So how am I supposed to output the data.

Put everything in inverted commas, or use tags or what.
That microsoft example uses both.

I suppose I can put everything about the computer in tags, but the computer tag itself I can put in a name= parameter, just like Microsoft does for the book ID

dont you use SOAP for using xml inyour programs?

No I'm doing it myself

VB Code:

Dim nodX As Node, nodY As Node, parents() As Node: ReDim parents(0)
                        Open strFileName For Output As #3
                            Print #3, "<?xml version=" & Chr(34) & "1.0" & Chr(34) & " ?>"
                            Print #3, "<!--                                                                    -->"
                            Print #3, "<!--                                                                    -->"
                            Print #3, "<report entireList=" & Chr(34) & CStr((reportScope = EntireList)) & Chr(34) & ">"
                            
                                        For Each nodX In frmMain.TreeView1.Nodes
                                            If Not InStr(nodX.Key, Chr(0)) = 0 Then
                                                Set parents(UBound(parents)) = nodX
                                                ReDim Preserve parents(UBound(parents) + 1)
                                            End If
                                        Next
                                        For i = 0 To UBound(parents) - 1
                                            Set nodY = parents(i).Child
                                            Do
                                                    hKey = CLng(Replace(nodY.Key, "_", ""))
                                                    With systemReportInformation(hKey)
                                                        Print #3, String(2, vbTab) & "<computer " & _
                                                            " computerName=" & Chr(34) & .aReportOnComputer & Chr(34) & _
                                                            " computerOS=" & Chr(34) & .bOperatingSystem & Chr(34) & _
                                                            " reportCreated=" & Chr(34) & .cCreated & Chr(34) & _
                                                            " userLoggedOn=" & Chr(34) & .dUserLoggedOnAs & Chr(34) & ">"
 
                                                        Print #3, String(3, vbTab) & "<computerHardware>"
                                                            With .fHardWareInfo
                                                                Print #3, String(4, vbTab) & "<cpu>"
                                                                    With .CPU
                                                                        printXML 3, 4, "cpuNumberOfCPUs", .cpuNumberOfCPUs
                                                                        printXML 3, 4, "cpuProcessorLevel", .cpuProcessorLevel
                                                                        printXML 3, 4, "cpuProcessorRevision", .cpuProcessorRevision
                                                                        printXML 3, 4, "cpuProcessorSpeed", .cpuProcessorSpeed
                                                                        printXML 3, 4, "cpuProcessorType", .cpuProcessorType
                                                                    End With
                                                                Print #3, String(4, vbTab) & "</cpu>"
 
 
'' etc.
 
 
'' and then
Private Function printXML(ByVal lngFileNum As Long, ByVal lngIndent As Long, ByVal strName As String, ByVal strData As String)
    Print #lngFileNum, String(lngIndent, vbTab) & "<" & strName & ">" & strData & "</" & strName & ">"
End Function

How about we forget our differences and make cheese muffins?

ah ok, i see

what do you mean output the data? pullit from the xml file and show it? sinc eyou know what tags are there, itll be the same way you put it in i guess

You see I've got my UDTs, and need to basically turn them into XML.

But I'm unsure as to how fields are laid out in XML and whether things should always have their own tags or be put inside other tags or what...

I think I may have figured this out.

Take a look at the sample here, and also microsoft's sample.
http://outer-court.com/tech/forum.htm


From what I can see, you put things in as parameters inside the tag (eg. <computer name="jamie">), so as to identify the <computer> tag itself.

And then everything else contained between the opening and closing <computer> tags goes in as just things between tags.
Except for the InstalledSoftware part which should probablty look like :

Code:

---

<installedApplications>
        <Application name="Adobe Acrobat 4.0, 5.0">
                <DisplayVersion>5.0</DisplayVersion>
                <InstallLocation>C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0</InstallLocation>
                <Publisher>Adobe Systems, Inc.</Publisher>
                <UninstallString>C:\WINDOWS\ISUNINST.EXE -f"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.isu" -c"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.dll"</UninstallString>
                <URLInfoAbout>http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/main.html</URLInfoAbout>
        </Application>
        <Application name="AOL Instant Messenger (SM)">
                <DisplayVersion></DisplayVersion>
                <InstallLocation></InstallLocation>
                <Publisher></Publisher>
                <UninstallString>C:\Program Files\AIM95\uninstll.exe -LOG= C:\Program Files\AIM95\install.log -OEM=</UninstallString>
                <URLInfoAbout></URLInfoAbout>
        </Application>

---

OK - so unique key goes in quotations, attributes get their own tags...

like:

Code:

---

<vehicleClass make="Triumph" model="GT6">
    <vehicleInstance registration="OLJ 565 M">
        <claim claim_number= "AU000002">
            <claimLossType>Auto Own Damage</claimLossType>
            <claimAmount>
                <currency>Euro</currency>
                <amount>1500.00</amount>
            </claimAmount>
        </claim>
    </vehicleInstance>
</vehicleClass>

---

Does that sound about right?

Yeah pretty much so what I was thinking.
Even though all ways of doing it are syntatically correct, I think this makes the most sense