ADV: XML to CSV Converter

Thu Jan 3 14:22:39 PST 2008

Unfortunately price was the main issue for us.
$1k is no big deal, but we are more and more moving towards many small 
unimportant servers where:

$2500 in hardware, "free" os and much of the software, where we did invest 
time developing schemes & systems built on top of, and/or customized, the OS 
dist, hylafax, putty, etc.. and all set up so that it's relatively quick to 
install a box from scratch and drop our stuff on it,
make it part of our network of almost-clone-of-each-other production boxes. 
Then it's relatively painless to push a qualifier and the associated user 
accounts and non-filepro data from any box to any other, relatively easy to 
have whole boxes be clone backups of other boxes that can switch from being 
backup clones to being the live production box for those users on short 
notice. And these boxes can be easily scattered around the country hosted in 
several different colocation facilities for roughly $100 per month per box. 
And each box supports maybe 50 or 100 users, intentionally, so that when a 
box dies, or a sites internet dies, it doesn't effect a large fraction of 
everyone.

So, similarly to anzio's webpo, which would also be pretty great for us, far 
more valuable for our particular operations than an xml/csv converter 
actually, $1k per box for just one little feature of the many that each box 
needs, that doesn't work out to be worth it.
It makes more sense to pay a developer to do some contract work for a couple 
days and have something you can use however and as much as you want.
We could maybe set up one or a few special xml conversion servers instead of 
getting it for each box, but that's no good, we want all boxes to be 
un-special and interchangeable. Right now we have that already so it's not 
simply a crazy dream. So it's just stupid to give up that flexability 
without some really really huge reason. For instance, that nimbleness is 
worth far more than moving forward to fp 5.6 or even 5.0.15.

I'm sorry this is not helpful and that I don't have any constructive 
suggestions.
I'm just saying what the things are that one potential customer is weighing 
so that you can see what is their situation and try to think of ways you 
might make yourself into an attractive part of that situation. Or not. Right 
now you are very "full service" which is great for end users. In which case 
maybe we were simply never part of your  intended market in the first place.

As for other existing (free or not) xml/csv converters or xml parsers,  has 
anyone looked at rxp?
I just built it on SUSE easy enough, and the examples look interesting, but 
it does look like you have to do a little work as a user to develop what 
they call a resource script for each conversion task, a special xml file 
that you write which rxp reads, which defines how you want the input 
converted to output. very very flexable, but as with most flexability, it 
costs in the form of learning curve and effort to use it. But not too crazy 
really, given a working simple example as a starting point, which they do 
provide. If it turns out to be useful I'll try to make a SCO binary.
Although I had time to google a few minutes and run "make", and peruse a few 
docs, I don't have time this moment to really see what it can do.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
To: "filePro Mailing List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: ADV: XML to CSV Converter

> In the relative spacial/temporal region of
> Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 11:55:58AM -0700, fp at casabellagallery.com achieved 
> the spontaneous
> generation of the following:
>> Aren't these things freely available?  A quick google search
>> turned out dozens of options.  A7Soft xml2csv and csv2xml appear
>> to be very popular.  I even came across some that run on *NIX
>
> Show me where it says A7Soft xml2csv auto-decodes Base64 embedded
> files.  Or changes the quote character (the screenshot at
> http://www.a7soft.com/xml2csv.html shows only an option to -include-
> quotes, but nothing to define what character is used), or change the field
> separator (list research shows that "~" instead of "," is a common fix to
> many problems, for instance.
>
> Likewise, show me where A7Soft's csv2xml automatically encodes and embeds 
> a
> file into Base64, and also -accepts- non-standard characters used in place
> of quotes or comma if your CSV needed to be written that way.
>
> There were numerous design decisions made that make my versions very
> filePro-friendly, as they were specifically designed with fP in mind, as
> well as the specific needs of some of my clients.  Most of my clients 
> doing
> XML with fP (or needing to) have to deal with embedded files going in or
> out, and that's just for starters--but it's a major sticking point for
> them.
>
> As with the usual comparisons between PuTTY and Anzio, the comparisons
> aren't always valid when one offers features the other doesn't.
>
> And I did look at an XML to CSV converter that was written in Java,
> cross-platform.  Price was comparable for unlimited (and nearly twice
> mine for source code) and I believe it still didn't do some of the things
> mine does--or doesn't say it does on the site, at least.  That was the
> RiceBridge one, I just checked.
>
> Much of the stuff out there is meant to work with Excel.  fP has some 
> other
> considerations one has to account for, as to the environments in which 
> it's
> used.
>
> And Jose...  "There's already a filePro community freely available, isn't
> there?"  :)  You still thought you could do better.  I felt the same way
> after looking at the XML<->CSV offerings out there.
>
> Bests,
>
> mark->
> -- 
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