Update to xmlsh 1.2.3

Update to xmlsh 

I recently pushed an update to xmlsh (v 1.2.3) and  all dependant extension modules.

Full release notes are here: (for the core)

http://www.xmlsh.org/ReleaseNotes123

Just some random notes on improvements

• New RANDOM32 and RANDOM64 variables
• Improved http command by switching to Apache httpclient
• MUCH better JSON support (to be documented)
• A log window for xmlshui makes using it as a debugger much easier
• Improvemetns to xurl and urlencode so that you can create safe URL's much easier by passing in all the components of a URL and query as separate strings. - Critical for creating complex REST calls.
• various bug fixes

In addition to core, some enhancements to aws, marklogic, and twitter extensions.

JSON Support

Today I added the beginnings of native JSON support in xmlsh.  This is in SVN only, no new releases yet.  I am soliciting oppinions on features for JSON.

Why JSON in xmlsh ?  Well I have to learn to stop hating and "Love the bomb".
JSON is prevalent in the web world.  I want to add better support for web services.  While the existing json2xml command works fine it is a bit clumbsy.   So I decided to support native JSON parsing with "jsonread" and JSONPATH with the "jsonpath" command.   Also variables can be pure parsed JSON objects.  

From here what ? This is a good start but I would like the equivilent of <[ xquery ]> but to work on JSON.  Maybe thats overkill ?  How about simple array and member access natively like   $X.Y[2]

Not sure how far I want to go with this.

Suggestions welcome !

-David

Change is coming to the Markup World

A small post about my experiences after attending Balisage 2012.

http://blog.calldei.com/2012/08/big-changes-in-th.html

Balisage 2012

Balisage 2012 is quickly approaching !

The annual congregation of markup geeks is quickly approaching. 

http://www.balisage.net/

I will be attending as well as presenting  Wed August 8 at 2:00 pm (http://www.balisage.net/2012/Program.html).   The schedule looks great.

In addition there will be a MarkLogic DemoJam on Tuesday Aug 7, free booze and food and  a chance to win great prizes.

This is the Must Go To conference of the year.   Hands Down.

What are you waiting for !  Register now.

Installer for xmlsh

Installers are pretty cool things.  They just do what you want and don't bother you with knowing how.  However they are also "black boxes" and tend to be dependent on things like having a GUI or a particular OS and you never know what they actually do under the hood.

For a product like xmlsh I never thought much about an installer.  Its so eazy, just unzip the distribution, set a few env variables, maybe chmod a file , oh and dont forget the pixie dust. By not having an installer I can ignore all that and give you the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm doing any magic dirty tricks behind your back.  Its just files right ?

But then its not always obvious.  An installer is, well, convenient!  So I've been looking into java installers and found a few.  But before spending any time on it I was wondering if my wonderful captive audience could make any suggestions.  Would an installer actually help anyone ? Were you daunted by the obscure installation instructions ?  Do you have a GUI always available (X windows or Mac or MS Windows) ?.  Does an installer feel more friendly or more opaque ?

Inquiring minds want to know !

Release 1.2.0

At long last many things came together and I have released xmlsh 1.2.0 along with updates for all the extension modules.   This is a really big release and I havent had time to document it all ...
But just to get you excited

xmlshui - a simple GUI for xmlsh
Named Pipes - xmkpipe creates named pipes for either text or XDM Streaming
XDM Streaming - using named pipes or implicit pipes (| with the set -xpipe)
Streaming enhancements - Some of the core commands now can stream unseralized XDM through named or implicit pipes - xsplit, xsql , marklogic:put ... more on the way.
Lots of bug fixes and test case improvements.
Marklogic extension improvements - XDM Streaming, dynamic URI construction using {seq} or {random}

This is a solid new release with extremely powerful new features and improvements on the core features.   I will be spending the next few weeks updating the docs to help explain how to make the best use out of the new features.

GUI GUI who wants a GUI ?

At long last (years) I knuckled down and made a simple xmlsh GUI.  This will be in the next release.
Why ? I have been opposing this for a long time for many reasons, the least of which is I dont really like writing GUI's.  But I got tired of the limited editing capabilities of DOS command shells and enjoy the very simple BSH UI GUI ...
I think what stopped me for long is the slippery slope.  Once you start with a GUI where do you stop ? Xmlsh is a command line shell and a embedded API, not a WYSIWYG tool.
But alas ... a simple GUI is useful sometimes.   I played around with various toolkits and settled on using plain AWT and Swing.  I found that Eclipse Windows Builder supports simple AWT apps.  Quite a nice tool.  I tried SWT but while it is much more feature full, it is very much tied to Eclipse and required a dozen more jar files to run even a basic window.   With AWT I was able to do a functional GUI in 200 lines of code.   This will likely expand to 20000 ... as feature creep sets in, but its a start.

Here is a screenshot of a sample session "xmlshui"