Re: [RFC/PATCH 2/3] add a library of code for producing structured output

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 11, 2010, 20:34 UTC
Message-ID: <m3y6gtg24x.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <91d4c9c4ecdd32166bedb6dc0bd007d6@212.159.54.234>

Julian Phillips <julian@quantumfyre.co.uk> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:16:18 -0700, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
> wrote:
>> Julian Phillips <julian@quantumfyre.co.uk> writes:
>> 
>>> Add a library that allows commands to produce structured output in any
>>> of a range of formats using a single API.
>>>
>>> The API includes an OPT_OUTPUT and handle_output_arg so that the
>>> option handling for different commands will be as similar as possible.
>> 
>> I was hoping that the existing low-level -z routines (e.g. "diff-* -z")
>> follow similar enough patterns to have a corresponding output-z.c and be
>> handled inside output.c library.  But that is not a requirement, just
>> "would have been nicer if the original were written that way".
> 
> As the API currently stands, I don't think it would be possible to
> recreate the existing output of -z, as the separator between values is not
> constant.  I haven't really looked into whether the output is completely
> incompatible with structured output though (i.e. could -z be supported by
> adding one or two functions to the API?).

What about the new(ly) proposed -Z output in one of its variants, namely with single NUL ("\0") as field separator, and double NUL ("\0\0") as a record terminator?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git