Thursday, February 17, 2005
XML, Mac OS X &Neo Citron
I recently found a PEAR module for PHP called XML_Serializer, and XML_Unserialiser. What a fantastic module. These classes utilize PHP native type calls to build and format XML strings for you. It's highly configurable (what to use for indents, line feeds, headings, type hints etc.). The XML is spot on exactly what I expect. The object just takes your data object (simple array, class, array of objects) and spits out XML. It's neat, clean, and simple. It also provides the unserializer in which you pass it XML and will return to you native PHP objects containing data. Pretty slick stuff.
I also did some limited investigation into foxpro web services through SOAP. What an attrocity that is! It looks like a ton of work to set it up, and the XML sent is "whacky". I think we'll just end up building a custom com object that will handle the parsing of simple XML. It's way easier than a SOAP setup. Should do the trick nicely.
This week I've been introduced to Mac OS X 10.3. It's pretty slick I must say. I'll also admit that I've been using windows much to much for my liking, so anything with a built in ls command scores huge points. ;-) We have a working CVS pserver, and a working installation of PostgreSQL. We just need to set up Apache, and PHP properly. 10.3 comes with a stock apache 1.3.33 (I think), so an upgrade to apache 2 is in order. Overall the system is fine to work on. If you have worked on one *NIX system, you can pretty much make your way around any other system. I thought it was based on Debian, turns out to be the Mach Kernel. It's a _HUGE_ step up from windows any which way you dice the turkey gizzards.
Getting the data transformation to work from MS_SQL might be a little more tricky. I've got the ODBC connection working, and some things are moved accross. I should have known it would completely barf all over the MS "uniqueidentifier" datatypes. It attempts to create them as "date" types. hahaha. I think I'll have to re-create the schema first, and then just copy the data over separately. That will be my task tomorrow I believe. Fun Fun Fun.
The OS X packaging community seems rather sporadic to me. Several unique packages are available, that may or may not coincide with the stock apple packages, or whatever other package you have installed. This coming from a guy who a year ago still installed everything from source. I guess I have just become to accustomed to a system with nice packaging layouts (like SuSE). I'm too spoiled and now to compile apache from source, and have one GINORMOUS httpd.conf file just seems wrong. I suppose I could make it work smartly, but I'm also lazy. ;-)
I've been feeling under the weather for a couple of days. Actually I feel like ASS! But my new favorite friend is Neo-Citron with Rye. It's totally wicked! you can't even taste the whiskey in it. I prefer the lemon and rye over the cherry flavoured Neo-Citron. But that's just me.
ΒΆ 3:35:00 PM
I also did some limited investigation into foxpro web services through SOAP. What an attrocity that is! It looks like a ton of work to set it up, and the XML sent is "whacky". I think we'll just end up building a custom com object that will handle the parsing of simple XML. It's way easier than a SOAP setup. Should do the trick nicely.
This week I've been introduced to Mac OS X 10.3. It's pretty slick I must say. I'll also admit that I've been using windows much to much for my liking, so anything with a built in ls command scores huge points. ;-) We have a working CVS pserver, and a working installation of PostgreSQL. We just need to set up Apache, and PHP properly. 10.3 comes with a stock apache 1.3.33 (I think), so an upgrade to apache 2 is in order. Overall the system is fine to work on. If you have worked on one *NIX system, you can pretty much make your way around any other system. I thought it was based on Debian, turns out to be the Mach Kernel. It's a _HUGE_ step up from windows any which way you dice the turkey gizzards.
Getting the data transformation to work from MS_SQL might be a little more tricky. I've got the ODBC connection working, and some things are moved accross. I should have known it would completely barf all over the MS "uniqueidentifier" datatypes. It attempts to create them as "date" types. hahaha. I think I'll have to re-create the schema first, and then just copy the data over separately. That will be my task tomorrow I believe. Fun Fun Fun.
The OS X packaging community seems rather sporadic to me. Several unique packages are available, that may or may not coincide with the stock apple packages, or whatever other package you have installed. This coming from a guy who a year ago still installed everything from source. I guess I have just become to accustomed to a system with nice packaging layouts (like SuSE). I'm too spoiled and now to compile apache from source, and have one GINORMOUS httpd.conf file just seems wrong. I suppose I could make it work smartly, but I'm also lazy. ;-)
I've been feeling under the weather for a couple of days. Actually I feel like ASS! But my new favorite friend is Neo-Citron with Rye. It's totally wicked! you can't even taste the whiskey in it. I prefer the lemon and rye over the cherry flavoured Neo-Citron. But that's just me.
ΒΆ 3:35:00 PM
