Doesn't Livecode have a complete XML Library? I just searched for XML in the dictionary and came up with a host of commands. I bet studying these would shed some light on what needs to be done. Also, perhaps looking at a simple XML file would benefit you. Many Apple prefs files are XML I think.
Bob On Jan 23, 2012, at 8:34 AM, Graham Samuel wrote: > Pete - thanks for your reply (the only one so far - are there no XML users on > the list??). I understand that arrays would do the job, since the array > structure in LC can be extended at will rather than having to be declared > before use, although I'm not sure about a structure where some 'nodes' were > missing - say in the employee database, if someone didn't have some > characteristic like a parking slot etc then I would not want to create a null > record just because some members of the employee set need one. I know that > this missing out of unwanted nodes works really well in XML. > > However the real reason that I'm trying to go down the XML route is that I > need this data to persist and I don't want the overhead of storing it in a > stack rather than just keeping a trivial amount of text which furthermore > could be easily examined/edited by non-LC programs. When one looks at > examples of XML, such as the one by Sarah Reichelt at > > http://www.troz.net/rev/ > > I notice that people tend to use employee lists and the like; but so far I > haven't found a very clear explanation of how you get attributes into new > nodes at a stroke, which is my problem. (In fact I'm not really doing an > employee database, but the concept is very similar.) > > I suppose more generally I'm trying to understand if XML is suitable for this > kind of data structure, where there are several nodes identical or similar in > structure but containing different data. It looks ideal to me, but the > difficulty of finding the last item you added, and of adding attributes at > creation time, is giving me doubts. But maybe I'm just confused. > > Graham > > On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:06:52 -0800, Pete <p...@mollysrevenge.com> wrote: >> >> Hi Graham, >> I'll say upfront that I'm not familiar with XML so I'm really suggesting an >> alternative rather than answering your question. >> >> Have you thought about using LC arrays rather than XML for this? LC arrays >> are lightning fast to access and I think would work great for a small >> dataset like this. >> >> The major key of your array could be the EmployeeID with subkeys holding >> the various data values associated with the employee. With that type of >> structure and assuming you know the employee id up front, you would create >> your employee "node" with: >> >> put theEmpID into theArray["EmployeeID"] >> >> After that, you could populate the details with statements like: >> >> put "John Doe" into theArray[theEmpID]["EmployeeName"] etc.... >> >> Pete >> >> >> >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 6:45 AM, Graham Samuel <livf...@mac.com> wrote: >> >>> For no special reason I have never used XML, either in LiveCode or >>> anywhere else. Now I'm scripting an app that calls for a tiny database >>> containing a number of similarly structured records (probably not more than >>> 50), with all the values essentially text or numbers easily expressible as >>> text. XML seems a good fit for this, but there are some odd bits I can't >>> understand despite reading Sarah Reichelt's useful tutorial and looking at >>> the LiveCode dictionary and the User Guide. >>> >>> The issue is this - suppose I want to add a node to my data structure >>> before I have any data (attributes or node contents) to put into it: for >>> example in an employee list, I want to create an <employeeDetails> node as >>> a member of a set of nodes all with that name - I may want to add subnodes >>> too at the moment of creation, but that's not the real issue. >>> >>> My next step will be to make that particular instance of <employeeDetails> >>> unique by giving it an attribute like say "EmployeeID" with a unique value. >>> The problem is that I can't apparently do this in one step, although I >>> would like to, so as to make sure that my new node can immediately be >>> identified, searched for etc. First I have to create the node, and >>> afterwards I want to add my attribute. But how can I find it? I suppose I >>> could search for a node that hasn't got an "EmployeeID" attribute yet, or I >>> could parse the whole structure to find the last node at that level, but >>> both these methods seems kind of crude. Is there some way to keep track of >>> the last node created, similar to LiveCode's feature within the creation of >>> new objects? If there is, I can't find it. Or maybe I'm just thinking about >>> it in the wrong way. >>> >>> Any help would be appreciated, as ever. >>> >>> Graham >> > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
