Mailman 3 March 1998 - Doc-SIG

Re: [DOC-SIG] What does this mean for Python?
by Jack Jansen March 12, 1998

March 12, 1998

> Ouch, my head hurts. Does anyone have a good reference (website, > book, whatever) to recommend that covers all important aspects of > XML and stuff like groves, validations, and all the related acronyms? I find http://www.sil.org/sgml/xml.html to be a good starting point. -- Jack Jansen | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ Jack.Jansen(a)cwi.nl | ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++ http://www.cwi.nl/~jack | see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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Re: [DOC-SIG] [STRING-SIG] What does this mean for Python?
by Sean Mc Grath March 11, 1998

March 11, 1998

>Paul Prescod writes: >>How to Make Perl The Language of Choice for XML [Press release snipped] > [Andrew Kuchling] > Thanks for finding this, Paul. Now, how should we respond? <Preface> I was hoping to un-bury myself enough to get started on some of the stuff below but so far no joy! With the help of experienced Python extension module developers we can make a lot of progress in a short time on this one and we *need* to. I know I speak for Paul Prescod and other SGML/XML people who are Python fans in saying that any XML related help needed by Python people working on this stuff will be provided by us lot double quick! Guys, this XML thing is really moving. Python has move power in its little finger for XML processing than pretty much any language I can think of. There is an opportunity here to grab the XML wave and show Python off to the world as the killer language it is. The is also an opportunity here to be lost. Time is of the essence! </Preface> 1. We need to take James Clark's C implementation of a non-validating XML parser and wrap it as Python extension module. Until such time as Python does Unicode it will only be able to handle 8 bit character sets and good old UTF-8. James has specifically designed it to be integrated into other applications. I do not think this would take very long and was hoping to have a shot at it myself:-( Volunteer C extension developers, please take one step forward. 2. We need to provide a SAX based interface to the parser (event based) (SAX is an emerging standard API for XML parsers) 3. We need to provide a DOM interface (tree based) DOM = Document Object Model - a W3C initiative to develop a language independent read/write interface to HTML/XML documents 4. We need to move on Unicode 5. We need to move on accessing Java XML parsers via JPython (go for it Paul!) 6. I need to get the finger out and make Lumberjack freely available 7. <Controversial>We need to implement the XSL stylesheet language using Python as the scripting environment instead of JavaScript</Controversial> I have a small amount of Python stuff in an upcoming book an XML. I could have a helluva lot more if the XML non-validating extension module existed, occupied space and exerted gravitational force. Sean _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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saxlib
by Lars Marius Garshol March 11, 1998

March 11, 1998

(Which list is the correct one for XML processing? Is there a Web SIG? Should there be an XML SIG? There certainly seems to be interest in this now.) I've now made a skeleton SAX library to see how SAX translates to Python, as a convenience for others doing SAX-related stuff in Python and as a focal point for further development. I found that SAX translated quite naturally to Python and that the xml-dev developers had IMHO done a very good job. The library provides minimal base classes with the default behaviour prescribed by the SAX spec and a trivial SAX-based ESIS printer. The only deviations from the letter of the specification are these: - HandlerBase has a superclass that is not described in SAX in order to make subclassing HandlerBase a little easier. This was done because HandlerBase has been made to ignore all unknown method calls, which might not be desirable in subclassed handlers. (As I write this I'm beginning to think that I should instead add empty methods to the class to avoid this problem. Opinions?) - Two methods have been added to AttributeMap: __getitem__ and keys, in order to make it possible to use AttributeMap as an ordinary Python hash table. Comments of all kinds are most welcome. The URL is <URL:http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~larsga/download/python/xml/> Also, if the __getitem__ and keys additions are accepted as part of the Python SAX specification, perhaps we should make a PySAX specification that describes the additions to the generic SAX? Now I'll get some sleep and tomorrow I'll start working on a SAX driver for xmllib. I'll also add a command-line interface so that we get a demo ESIS-producing XML parser. -- "These are, as I began, cumbersome ways / to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat / is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle / of the twentieth century, and leave him there." -- Edwin Brock http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~larsga/ http://birk105.studby.uio.no/ _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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What does this mean for Python?
by Paul Prescod March 11, 1998

March 11, 1998

http://www.perl.com/perl-xml.html ---- How to Make Perl The Language of Choice for XML Perl has been the language of choice for anyone doing serious text processing. Now efforts are underway to make Perl the language of choice for those doing "structured" text processing using the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The XML 1.0 specification was recently (Feb. 10, 1998) released as a recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium. XML is a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) and it seems to be emerging as a universal syntax for defining non-proprietary document markup and data formats. XML made significant changes to SGML to reflect the nature of the Web and to make it easier to build tools that process XML. Tim Bray, co-editor of the XML 1.0 specification, has used Perl extensively for huge text processing applications. He had a special interest in seeing a bridge built from Perl to XML -- one that would make it simple for programmers to process XML data. So, out of this interest, a small group of developers met at O'Reilly & Associates in Sebastopol, California for a one-day Perl/XML summit. In addition to Tim, those attending the summit were: Larry Wall, creator of Perl, and senior developer, O'Reilly & Associates Dick Hardt, developer of Perl for Win 32, and Chief Technology Officer, ActiveState Tool Corp. Tim O'Reilly, President and CEO, O'Reilly & Associates Dale Dougherty, CEO, Songline Studios Gina Blaber, Director, Software Products Group, O'Reilly & Associates. "In the design of XML, we were continuously mindful of the need to enable the fast, efficient creation of scripts and programs for processing XML," says Tim Bray. ---- My commentary: Perl has nothing to recommend it over Python right now. In fact this February's Dr. Dobbs already has an article on Python and XML. The only snag is Unicode support. Perl doesn't have Unicode support but Larry has promised it. "One of the summit group's first priorities is to get Perl working with Unicode (ISO 1046). Unicode enables code to be easily translated into other languages; XML requires Unicode. Larry Wall will lead the team working on this task." Many people equate CGI and Perl. I would hate to see that happen with XML and hope I can help to stop that from happening. In the short term, I will integrate JPython with a Java XML parser and write a tutorial on how to use that (JPython inherits Unicode support from Java, right?). Paul Prescod - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco Can we afford to feed that army, while so many children are naked and hungry? Can we afford to remain passive, while that soldier-army is growing so massive? - "Gabby" Barbadian Calpysonian in "Boots" _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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RE: [DOC-SIG] [STRING-SIG] What does this mean for Python?
by Friedrich, Robin K March 11, 1998

March 11, 1998

(Note: I think this is a Great Project, but...) I would propose that the web-sig is the most appropriate current SIG for this XML project. Just my $.02. Any reasons why not? >---------- >From: Andrew Kuchling[SMTP:akuchlin@cnri.reston.va.us] >Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 1998 11:11 AM >To: string-sig(a)python.org; Doc-SIG >Subject: Re: [DOC-SIG] [STRING-SIG] What does this mean for Python? > >[This is the last message I'll be cross-posting to both the Doc-SIG > and String-SIG. The Doc-SIG is "a forum for discussing both the form > and content of Python documentation" (from Michael McLay's > description) and not document processing in general, so I conclude > that the String-SIG is more appropriate.] _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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Re: [DOC-SIG] Xrefs
by Mark Hammond March 3, 1998

March 3, 1998

-----Original Message----- From: Robin Friedrich <friedrich(a)pythonpros.com> To: Doc-SIG <doc-sig(a)python.org> Date: Tuesday, 24 February 1998 7:59 Subject: Re: [DOC-SIG] Xrefs > ... >.. [O'Reilly] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/html2/index.html >for an ordinary URL, or: >.. [Wizbang] win32api:spamDialog.toolBar.wizBangPrime >for an external reference object called win32api, or: >.. [Geo-model] self.GeoPotentials.Model >to point to an object within our current package with an absolute path. >Since we mandate full pathing to python objects we don't need to specify what the >stating point of the reference is. Note also that the bracket highlighted text >does not have to correspond to the object it's pointing to. This does seem pretty good, and the last word so far on the matter. This fits well with the existing code, and I imagine that if someone _really_ wanted the completely inline style, they could implement it with "<" tags. Im probably way over generalising, but it does seem a good idea to reserve some tokens for additional growth - I dont know - say an inline image reference (ok - bad example - umm - anyway). Maybe we could reserve "<" and ">" as special indicators to allow future growth. At this stage, all it means is that you must escape literal "<" and ">"... Either way, the scheme above seems to meet my requirements, so we can steam ahead :-) How exactly do we get started (he says, suffering work overload as it is :-) Are there still design issues to resolve? eg, I saw the note saying "you must explicitly reference all objects". I dont like that idea - IMO, you should require the same level of reference that the code would. Eg: def foo(): pass def bar()" """ See also [foo function] ..[foo function] foo # Should not need to know the full location Or did I mis-understand? Thanks, Mark. _______________ DOC-SIG - SIG for the Python Documentation Project send messages to: doc-sig(a)python.org administrivia to: doc-sig-request(a)python.org _______________

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