XML is a beautiful thing [was: How do YOU use Nmap XML?]

[brett () custom-tech net (Brett Campbell)]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 04:16:15PM +0100, Nils Magnus wrote:
> Although XML may be helpful at times, I have still gives me some
> headache. The basic syntax may be specified, but there lots of

i can't directly answer fyodor's question, so this is a response to part
of the sub-thread that was forming.

> unanswered questions. Example: nmap generates the following output:
> ...
> <hosts up="1" down="0" total="1" />
> ...
> This is perfect from a syntax point of view, but why isn't it formatted as

the above naturally seems easier and more contained to me.  i would much
rather prefer pulling values from attributes than just plain text or
whatever the latter is that follows.

> <hosts>
>   <up>
>     1
>   </up>
>   <down>
>     0
>   </down>
> </hosts> ?
>
> No XML evangelist was able to help me on this issue so far.
>
> The Perl-Parser is ok, but if you compare the amount of time to get
> something useful out of an XML-parser compared to a grep over "-oM",
> the XML will currently always lose.

i think xml output is one of the nicest contributions nmap has seen.  i'm
only beginning to work with xml and discover its advantages (i haven't
yet touched nmap xml output, ironically).

let me tell you, i've been deep into the days of crazy shell scripts,
sed, awk, temporary files, and/or perl when parsing -oG or -oM.

Dave Cheney made some good points in this thread about xml being
eXtensible.  it's a hell of a lot easier and more sane to maintain your
scripts when parsing a potentially-changing xml output, compared to
looking at some wicked one-liners in that shell script you wrote six
months ago (containing undescriptive things like "cut -f3 -d'/'").

thanks,
 - -brett
-- 
[ Brett R. Campbell ]
 -> Configuration Management / Systems Administration
 -> Collaborative Agent Design Research Center
 -> California Polytechnic State University, SLO, CA
 http://www.cadrc.calpoly.edu/frameset_content/content_about_us.html

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