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Diffstat (limited to 'community/gsoc/project_ideas/xmlfs.mdwn')
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diff --git a/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xmlfs.mdwn b/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xmlfs.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5e5eaa13 --- /dev/null +++ b/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xmlfs.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +[[!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/XQuery, or both, or some combination thereof (perhaps XPath/XQuery 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. Very 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 improvement to the existing xmlfs, or some other existing +Hurd translator. (Especially those in +[hurdextras](http://www.nongnu.org/hurdextras/) are often quite rudimental -- +it shouldn't be hard to find something to improve...) |