[HECnet] CSV Proposal

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-05-19 18:45, Robert Jarratt wrote:


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-
hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: 19 May 2013 17:34
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Cc: Brian Hechinger
Subject: Re: [HECnet] CSV Proposal

On 2013-05-19 18:14, Brian Hechinger wrote:
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 05:02:18PM +0100, Robert Jarratt wrote:

Well, if the separator is | then it isn't a CSV file :-)

While I do understand the origins of the term CSV, the C really doesn
stand for character. Tabs are used quite commonly as well as commas.
Any character is valid, so long as it's accepted by all consumers of
said file.

The C standing for comma is antiquated and outdated and should be
changed. In my not so humble opinion, anyway. :)

He says, to a crowd of people running antiquated and outdated software and
hardware... :-D

Anyway, while I think I agree that technically, C stands for comma, I also
think
| is a better separator in this case.
Feel free to call it anything. The acronym for the format is less
important. We
could call it BSV then.



I didn't want to start a big debate about this, it was just a little joke. I
would be more than happy to use the pipe symbol as the separator.

Didn't think you intended to either. I just could not resist carrying it on as a joke a little further. :-)

I have no issue with this except that allowing the columns to appear
in any order, while nice and flexible, makes it harder to write the
software. It does not seem worth the effort to have that flexibility
given the low enthusiasm for writing this software, so a
simplification would be to fix the column order.

It really isn't that hard to write. I've implemented such a thing in
many languages (including very stupid ones) and it is *always* worth the
effort.


It wouldn't be a big effort for me on the platforms I write for today. It
would be harder for me on platforms I programmed a long time ago (or even
never in the case of RSX) and never having programmed for Datatrieve, but
that is precisely why I would like to do it, although I am not at all sure
about the RSX hurdle.

RSX is easy. I wouldn't care about doing it in assembler. Either C or BASIC would be my choice in this case. RSX is no special deal in this case, except for the possible memory constraints.

Is there a language on VAX that would make it easier to port it to RSX? Or
can Datatrieve be accessed over   DECnet so the scraper code runs on VAX and
populates Datatrieve on RSX?

Yes, to all of the questions above. :-)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                                   || "I'm on a bus
                                                                  ||   on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se                         ||   Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                                         ||   tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol