I was reverse engineeringfucking around with the LBX file format for our Brother label printer’s software at work, because I wanted to generate labels programmatically, and they’re zipped XML too. Terrible format, LBX, really annoying to work with. The parser in Brother P-Touch Editor is really picky too. A string is 1 character longer or shorter than the length you defined in an attribute earlier in the XML? “I’ve never seen this file format in my life,” says P-Touch Editor.
EDIT: And with more complicated strings (like ones havingnumbers or symbols - just regular-ass ASCII symbols, mind you) there will be tens of <stringItem>, because apparently numbers and letters don’t even work the same. Even line breaks have their own <stringItem>. And if the number of these <stringItem> and their charLen don’t match what’s actually in pt:data, it won’t open the file.
XML has its strengths as a markdown format. My own formatted text format ETML is based on XML, as I could recycle old HTML conventions (still has stylesheet as an option), and I can store multiple text blocks in an XML file. It’s not something my main choice of human readable format SDL excels at, which itself has its own issues (I’m writing my own extensions/refinements for it by the name XDL, with hexadecimal numbers, ISO dates, etc.).
Please don’t. If you need something like json but with comments, then use YAML or TOML. Those formats are designed to be human-readable by default, json is better suited for interchanging information between different pieces of software. And if you really need comments inside JSON, then find a parser that supports // or /* */ syntax.
Yes, it’s a field. Specifically, a field containing human-readable information about what is going on in adjacent fields, much like a comment. I see no issue with putting such information in a json file.
As for “you don’t comment by putting information in variables”: In Python, your objects have the __doc__ attribute, which is specifically used for this purpose.
IMHO: XML is a file format, JSON is a data transfer format. Reinventing things like RSS or SVG to use JSON wouldn’t be helpful, but using XML to communicate between your app’s frontend and backend wouldn’t be either.
I wish more things used Nickel or Dhall for config. I don’t know why I wouldn’t want editor support for type information or the ability to make functions in my non-Turing-complete config to eliminate boilerplate on my end.
Of course you can use XML that way, but it is unnecessarily verbose and complex because you have to make decisions, like, whether to store things as attributes or as nested elements.
I stand by my statement that if you’re saving things to a file you should probably use XML, if you’re transferring data over a network you should probably use JSON.
I came into the industry right when XML fever had peaked as was beginning to fall back. But in MS land, it never really went away, just being slowly cannibalize by JSON.
You’re right though, there was some cool stuff being done with xml when it was assumed that it would be the future of all data formats. Being able to apply standard tools like XLT transforms, XSS styling, schemas to validate, and XPath to search/query and you had some very powerful generic tools.
JSON has barely caught up to that with schemes and transforms. JQ lets you query json but I don’t really find it more readable or usable than XPath. I’m sure something like XLT exists, but there’s no standardization or attempt to rally around shared tools like with XML.
That to me is the saddest thing. VC/MBA-backed companies have driven everyone into the worst cases of NIHS ever. Now there’s no standards, no attempts to share work or unify around reliable technology. Its every company for themselves and getting other people suckered into using (and freely maintaining) your tools as a prelude to locking them into your ecosystem is the norm now.
XSDs are far from perfect, but waaay more powerful than json schema.
XSLT has its problems, but completely transforming a document to a completely different structure with just a bit of text is awesome. I had to rewrite a relatively simple XSLT in Java and it was something like 10 times more lines.
I have actually seen it in an XML file in the wild. Never quite understood why they did it. Anything they encoded into there, they could have just added a node for.
But it was an XML format that was widely used in a big company, so presumably somewhere someone wrote a shitty XML parser that can’t deal with additional nodes. Or they were just scared of touching the existing structure, I don’t know.
It’s not a waste of time… it’s a waste of space. But it does allow you to “enforce” some schema. Which, very few people use that way and so, as a data store using JSON works better.
Or… we could go back to old school records where you store structs with certain defined lengths in a file.
You know what? XML isn’t looking so bad now.
If you want to break the AI ask instead what regex you should use to parse HTML.
We slowly need to interface with an app at work that uses fixed-width too. It does not sound that bad if you hear it but it sucks to figure out where you are missing whitespace when most fields are not used and therefore all whitespace. Oh, and of course there are a lot of fields, also are aligned/formatted differently based on their type and has thin/no/wrong documentation. And I have yet to find a simple but decent “debugger”.
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A word document is xml
zipped xml!
Lots or file formats are just zipped XML.
I was
reverse engineeringfucking around with the LBX file format for our Brother label printer’s software at work, because I wanted to generate labels programmatically, and they’re zipped XML too. Terrible format, LBX, really annoying to work with. The parser in Brother P-Touch Editor is really picky too. A string is 1 character longer or shorter than the length you defined in an attribute earlier in the XML? “I’ve never seen this file format in my life,” says P-Touch Editor.Sounds like it’s actually using XSLT or some kind of content validation. Which to be honest sounds like a good practice.
Here’s an example of a text object taken from the XML, if you’re curious: https://clips.clb92.xyz/2024-09-08_22-27-04_gfxTWDQt13RMnTIS.png
EDIT: And with more complicated strings (like ones havingnumbers or symbols - just regular-ass ASCII symbols, mind you) there will be tens of <stringItem>, because apparently numbers and letters don’t even work the same. Even line breaks have their own <stringItem>. And if the number of these <stringItem> and their charLen don’t match what’s actually in pt:data, it won’t open the file.
Is it because of the lower case Latin æ since it’s technically one character even if two bytes?
Nope, doesn’t seem like it.
What a mess… sounds like the devs got burned by various Unicode edge cases RTL, etc
The future if text documents were Json:
City_pic.png.xml
finally accurate ai
XML is fine. Namespaces have a special place in hell though
Except for obvious typos
wateListen we all know deep down the solution is to try to parse it with regex
AI is starting to get really smart
RSS/ATOM has to be the best thing to come out of XML
I’m starting to like this AI thing…
I hate writing xml with a passion
What about writing in xml without any passion ?
This is fine.
If you are writing it then you are doing it wrong.
I mean, that’s why it’s serialized. It’s not supposed to be written by hand, that’s why you have a deserializer. 🤦
XML has its strengths as a markdown format. My own formatted text format ETML is based on XML, as I could recycle old HTML conventions (still has stylesheet as an option), and I can store multiple text blocks in an XML file. It’s not something my main choice of human readable format SDL excels at, which itself has its own issues (I’m writing my own extensions/refinements for it by the name XDL, with hexadecimal numbers, ISO dates, etc.).
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People may hate on SOAP but I’ve never had issues with setting up a SOAP client
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Please don’t. If you need something like json but with comments, then use YAML or TOML. Those formats are designed to be human-readable by default, json is better suited for interchanging information between different pieces of software. And if you really need comments inside JSON, then find a parser that supports
//or/* */syntax.deleted by creator
Yes, it’s a field. Specifically, a field containing human-readable information about what is going on in adjacent fields, much like a comment. I see no issue with putting such information in a json file.
As for “you don’t comment by putting information in variables”: In Python, your objects have the
__doc__attribute, which is specifically used for this purpose.IMHO: XML is a file format, JSON is a data transfer format. Reinventing things like RSS or SVG to use JSON wouldn’t be helpful, but using XML to communicate between your app’s frontend and backend wouldn’t be either.
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Yeah, json is not a good config format. As much as xml is not. Please use something like YAML or TOML.
I never moved away from ini I’ve just been sititng back watching you all re-invent the wheel over and over and over and over and over.
It’s a wheel, it’s supposed to turn over and over and over and infinitum!
/S (because it’s big sarcasm instead of small.)
I wish more things used Nickel or Dhall for config. I don’t know why I wouldn’t want editor support for type information or the ability to make functions in my non-Turing-complete config to eliminate boilerplate on my end.
Of course you can use XML that way, but it is unnecessarily verbose and complex because you have to make decisions, like, whether to store things as attributes or as nested elements.
I stand by my statement that if you’re saving things to a file you should probably use XML, if you’re transferring data over a network you should probably use JSON.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
We were using XML for that before JSON.
Yes and it is a good thing we don’t anymore.
Why? JSON hasn’t given us anything XML hasn’t, except maybe a bit of terseness.
I do agree SOAP is a bit over engineered, though, but that’s not the fault of XML.
As a pentester, if I see XML in HTTP I start crying.
XML is much more annoying to read/write by hand
I came into the industry right when XML fever had peaked as was beginning to fall back. But in MS land, it never really went away, just being slowly cannibalize by JSON.
You’re right though, there was some cool stuff being done with xml when it was assumed that it would be the future of all data formats. Being able to apply standard tools like XLT transforms, XSS styling, schemas to validate, and XPath to search/query and you had some very powerful generic tools.
JSON has barely caught up to that with schemes and transforms. JQ lets you query json but I don’t really find it more readable or usable than XPath. I’m sure something like XLT exists, but there’s no standardization or attempt to rally around shared tools like with XML.
That to me is the saddest thing. VC/MBA-backed companies have driven everyone into the worst cases of NIHS ever. Now there’s no standards, no attempts to share work or unify around reliable technology. Its every company for themselves and getting other people suckered into using (and freely maintaining) your tools as a prelude to locking them into your ecosystem is the norm now.
And there are some truly magic tools.
XSDs are far from perfect, but waaay more powerful than json schema.
XSLT has its problems, but completely transforming a document to a completely different structure with just a bit of text is awesome. I had to rewrite a relatively simple XSLT in Java and it was something like 10 times more lines.
And don’t forget about namespaces. Look at formats like HAL and ODATA that try to add HATEOAS onto JSON.
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That’s my biggest peev about JSON actually. No comments!! WTH!
On one hand I agree, on the other hand I just know that some people would immediately abuse it and put relevant data into comments.
do they do that in xml? never seen that
I have actually seen it in an XML file in the wild. Never quite understood why they did it. Anything they encoded into there, they could have just added a node for.
But it was an XML format that was widely used in a big company, so presumably somewhere someone wrote a shitty XML parser that can’t deal with additional nodes. Or they were just scared of touching the existing structure, I don’t know.
This is why there are none, but I still think it’s dumb. Parsers can’t see comments anyways.
That’s assuming people actually use a parser and don’t build their own “parser” to read values manually.
And before anyone asks: Yes, I’ve known people who did exactly that and to this day I’m still traumatized by that discovery.
But yes, comments would’ve been nice.
There’s comments in the specs and a bunch of parsers that actually inore //
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json spec draft 7
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OH HEY EVERYONE, EVERYONE, THIS GUY LIKES JSON
Fuck you and your unstructured garbage.
Wow, that’s a very passive aggressive reaction. I enjoyed a lot.
This is what happens when stack overflow is used for training.
Not long before AI just tells me to google it, or read the manual.
Yea, the Bing chat (or what it was originally called) sometimes used to tell people to learn coding instead of asking it to generate code.
This is what happens when people make content for points.
OP already admitted he made it up.
It’s not a waste of time… it’s a waste of space. But it does allow you to “enforce” some schema. Which, very few people use that way and so, as a data store using JSON works better.
Or… we could go back to old school records where you store structs with certain defined lengths in a file.
You know what? XML isn’t looking so bad now.
If you want to break the AI ask instead what regex you should use to parse HTML.
Had to work with a fixed string format years ago. Absolute hell.
Something like 200 variables, all encoded in fixed length strings concatenated together. The output was the same.
…and some genius before me used + instead of stringbuilders or anything dignified, so it ran about as good as lt. Dan.
Oof. That sounds horrible
We slowly need to interface with an app at work that uses fixed-width too. It does not sound that bad if you hear it but it sucks to figure out where you are missing whitespace when most fields are not used and therefore all whitespace. Oh, and of course there are a lot of fields, also are aligned/formatted differently based on their type and has thin/no/wrong documentation. And I have yet to find a simple but decent “debugger”.
BASED. What is the name of this AI? I want to use this.
coral by cohere
no wait, it’s perplexity, I remember the logo.
you can try their labs version which gives to access to latest and beefy models like llama3.1 70b
XML is good for markup. The problem is that people too often confuse “markup” and “serialization”.
Too redundant, just use S-exprs.
(Mostly joking, but in some cases…)
Unironically.
Given the choice between S-expressions and XML, I will choose S-expressions.