[linux-dvb] XML Channel file format

[Dave Chapman <dave@dchapman.com>]

On Saturday 24 November 2001 15:56, mocm@convergence.de wrote:
> The extra information is ok. I could write a program that just parses
> the relevant information for the libdvb and ignores the rest. We may
> need something for the LNB information, though. I don't want to use
> any extra libraries, because I want to keep libdvb simple.

I can understand you wanting to keep libdvb simple and independent, but it 
may be a lot of work for you to correctly incorporate an XML parser into 
libdvb.

For example, empty elements can be written as either <element></element>, or 
<element />.  You also need to take account of things like character 
encodings and entities (e.g. "&amp;"). If you use something like libxml, then 
you can just more or less forget about these things.

Also, if you use libxml, you can just call one function to read the entire 
XML file into a tree structure in memory.  The application can then 
manipulate the tree and write it back to an XML file with a single command.

Regarding things like LNB information.  This has nothing to do with the 
channels - it should be stored in a separate setup file for the user.  This 
can also include Diseqc information and details on which card(s) can receive 
which satellites.

We should also not forget DVB-C and DVB-T when we are doing this.

I think the basic structure of the XML file should be as close to the DVB SI 
information as possible.  After all, the main purpose of a channels file is 
to store that information.


Dave.


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