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authorThomas Schwinge <tschwinge@gnu.org>2009-03-05 19:20:56 +0100
committerThomas Schwinge <tschwinge@gnu.org>2009-03-05 19:20:56 +0100
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+[[meta copyright="Copyright © 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
+
+[[meta license="""[[toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[toggleable
+id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
+any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
+Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license
+is included in the section entitled
+[[GNU_Free_Documentation_License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
+
+[[meta title="xmlfs"]]
+
+Hurd [[translators|hurd/translator]] allow presenting underlying data in a
+different format. This is a very powerful ability: it allows using standard
+tools on all kinds of data, and combining existing components in new ways, once
+you have the necessary translators.
+
+A typical example for such a translator would be xmlfs: a translator that
+presents the contents of an underlying XML file in the form of a directory
+tree, so it can be studied and edited with standard filesystem tools, or using
+a graphical file manager, or to easily extract data from an XML file in a
+script etc.
+
+The exported directory tree should represent the DOM structure of the document,
+or implement XPath, or both, or some combination thereof (perhaps XPath could
+be implemented as a second translator working on top of the DOM one) --
+whatever works well, while sticking to XML standards as much as possible.
+
+Ideally, the translation should be reversible, so that another, complementary
+translator applied on the expanded directory tree would yield the original XML
+file again; and also the other way round, applying the complementary translator
+on top of some directory tree and xmlfs on top of that would yield the original
+directory again. However, with the different semantics of directory trees and
+XML files, it might not be possible to create such a universal mapping. Thus
+it is a desirable goal, but not a strict requirement.
+
+The goal of this project is to create a fully usable XML translator, that
+allows both reading and writing any XML file. Implementing the complementary
+translator also would be nice if time permits, but is not mandatory part of the
+task.
+
+The [[existing_partial_(read-only)_xmlfs_implementation|hurd/translator/xmlfs]]
+can serve as a starting point.
+
+This task requires pretty good designing skills. Good knowledge of XML is also
+necessary. Learning translator programming will obviously be necessary to
+complete the task.
+
+Possible mentors: Olaf Buddenhagen (antrik)
+
+Exercise: Make some modification to the existing xmlfs translator, and write a
+shell script that uses xmlfs to extract some interesting information from an
+.odt document. (More specific suggestions welcome... :-) )