OpenEuphoria

Re: Alternative for XML

• Posted by Derek Parnell <ddparnell at bigpond.com> Oct 20, 2003
• 485 views

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tommy Carlier" <tommy.carlier at pandora.be>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Subject: RE: Alternative for XML


> 
> 
> Derek Parnell wrote:
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Tommy Carlier" <tommy.carlier at pandora.be>
> > To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 7:42 PM
> > Subject: Alternative for XML
> > > I've created a markup language as an alternative for XML. I call it SMEL 
> > > 
> > > (Some Modest Extensible Language). It behaves a bit like XML, but it's 
> > > more 
> > > compact, and has some advanced features that XML doesn't have. To my 
> > > opinion, it's also more human-readable, especially for programmers.
> > > 
> > > I'm also making a Euphoria-library for reading and writing 
> > > SMEL-documents.
> > > Is this a good idea? Would Euphoria-programmers use SMEL, or would they 
> > > prefer using XML?
> > > Example: the XML-fragment:
> > > 
> > > <?xml version="1.0"?>
> > > <data>
> > > <element attribute="value" attribute2="value2">Some data</element>
> > > <empty/>
> > > </data>
> > > 
> > > translated into SMEL:
> > > 
> > > <smel version="1.0">
> > > data
> > > {
> > > element(attribute="value",attribute2="value2"){"Some data"}
> > > empty;
> > > }
> > Interesting. I've been playing with something very similar for use with 
> > win32lib. Your syntax is more inclusive than I need but it might be 
> > worth me standardizing on SMEL. 
> > Also, you might also like to consider non-text attribute values, and 
> > removing the '=' symbol. For example ...
> > <smel version{1.0}>
> > data
> > {
> > element(attribute{value},attribute2{value2}){"Some data"}
> > empty;
> > }
> > For win32lib, I could do something like ...
> > <smel version{1.0}>
> > form{
> >   control{type{Window}, 
> >           caption{Hello, World!}, 
> >           left{12}, 
> >           top{10},
> >           width{300}, 
> >           height{300}, 
> >           flags{WS_VISIBLE, WS_DLGFRAME}
> >          },
> >   control{type{EditText},
> >           name{UserId},
> >           left{5}, top{5}
> >           width(units{char}){20}
> >          }
> >   control{type{Button},
> >           caption{Close},
> >           flags{autoclose},
> >           left(from{UserId}){2},
> >           bottom{5}
> >          }
> >   }
> > ...hmmmm... I'll think about it some more.
> > -- 
> > Derek
> 
> Thanks for showing the interest in SMEL. In standard SMEL, as it exists 
> now, the above Win32Lib-definitions would look like this:
> 
>  <smel version='1.0'>
>  form
>  {
>    control(type='Window', 
>            caption='Hello, World!',
>            left='12', 
>            top='10',
>            width='300', 
>            height='300',
>            flags='WS_VISIBLE,WS_DLGFRAME')
>    { 
>      /* the child-controls can be defined in the body of the 
> parent-control */
>      control(type='EditText',
>              name='UserId',
>              left='5', top='5'
>              width='20ch'); /* 20ch = 20 chars: unit as part of the 
> value */
>      control(type='Button',
>              caption='Close',
>              flags='autoclose',
>              left='UserId+2',
>              bottom='5');
>    }
>  }
<snip>

I realize that things can be seen in multiple ways, and I can see that you are
expressing the hierarchical nature of the form here, but I can see that there
will be discussions about 'is such-and-such an "element" or an "attribute"?'
Maybe you need to give us a guide as to what the differences between elements and
attributes are?

Also, I really think that numeric values can be expressed as such and not as
strings. Also, as attributes are delimited by a comma, only strings that contain
commas need to have quotes. Another issue is how can we express nested data in
attributes? I suggest that instead of quotes, we use the braces characters.

  <smel version='1.0'>
  form
  {
    /* First we encode the attributes of 'form' */
    control(type=Window, 
            caption={Hello, World!},
            at={12,10}, 
            size={300,300},
            flags={WS_VISIBLE,WS_DLGFRAME})
    /* And now the elements in 'form' */
    { 
      /* the child-controls can be defined in the body of the parent-control */
      control(type=EditText,
              name=UserId,
              left=5, top=5,
              width=20ch); /* 20ch = 20 chars: unit as part of the value */
      control(type=Button,
              caption=Close,
              flags=autoclose,
              left=UserId+2,
              bottom=5);
    }
  }

> This is just an example. You can build much more powerful constructions 
> than that with SMEL. I'll try and post a version of the SMEL-library as 
> soon as possible.
> I'm also working on SMEL-applications: specifications of SMEL-document 
> formats like SMELS (SMEL Schema) for defining new SMEL-formats, and 
> SMELT (SMEL Transformations) for transforming SMEL-formats to other 
> SMEL-formats or to other text-formats (like XML or HTML).
> 
> More suggestions are welcome.

See above.... 

-- 
Derek