CLI: need python program to handle XML contacts

Xeratul · 05-10-2012, 09:38 AM

Hi,

need python program to handle XML contacts under Console (CLI, no X11, DISPLAY="")

The format looks like this, and please find a sample:

cat .osmo/contacts_records.xml

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<osmo_contacts>
  <contacts_groups/>
  <contacts_records>
    <record>
      <group>None</group>
      <first_name>first name linux</first_name>
      <last_name>last name linux</last_name>
      <nickname>Nick linux</nickname>
      <birthday_date>0</birthday_date>
      <name_day_date>0</name_day_date>
      <home_address>address </home_address>
      <home_postcode>postcode linux</home_postcode>
      <home_city>city in the world</home_city>
      <home_phone_1>home phone nr 4334554</home_phone_1>
      <work_phone_1>work phone nr  435454</work_phone_1>
      <cell_phone_1>43545344243</cell_phone_1>
      <email_1>linux@gmail.com</email_1>
      <www_1>www.linux.com</www_1>
      <im_skype>my skype pseudo</im_skype>
      <additional_info>additional info 

this field is important</additional_info>
    </record>
    <record>
      <group>None</group>
      <first_name>second contact first name </first_name>
      <last_name>last name</last_name>
      <nickname>nickname</nickname>
      <birthday_date>0</birthday_date>
      <name_day_date>0</name_day_date>
      <home_address> my address</home_address>
      <home_postcode>postcode </home_postcode>
      <home_city>city</home_city>
      <home_phone_1>45345435</home_phone_1>
    </record>
  </contacts_records>
</osmo_contacts>

Would you have a simple python code that could :
- add
- edit
those categories mentioned above in this sample?
thank you in advance a lot lot if it might be possible for an experienced coder.

Snark1994 · 05-10-2012, 10:02 AM

Firstly, don't put "urgent" in your thread titles. What're urgent to me are my own problems, not yours

What sort of thing are you looking for? Do you mean an interactive programme which will allow you to browse through and amend contact details, or just a script that will do something predefined to all the contacts? If you're a bit more specific, then we should be able to help you

Nominal Animal · 05-10-2012, 10:29 AM

Exactly what Snark1994 said.

Xeratul, if you want an interactive program (as opposed to a batch processing tool), do you want a command-line application, or a GUI one? Which toolkit to use? PyQt4?

There are basically two approaches to editing:

Parse the entire dataset into an abstract data structure (associative arrays in Python) in memory, edit, then emit the entire structure as XML
Read the entire dataset as text, editing only the fields, keeping everything else in both that record and all other records intact
(When adding a new record, use the first record as a template)

The first is easier to implement, but often results in loss of fidelity if extraneous data (especially attributes) are added to the XML file by some other utility. The second one is extremely useful in that it edits only field contents and keeps any extraneous data intact, but it is also a lot more difficult to implement, as you basically need to implement an XML parser yourself.

audriusk · 05-10-2012, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

Parse the entire dataset into an abstract data structure (associative arrays in Python) in memory, edit, then emit the entire structure as XML

For this xml.etree.ElementTree from Python's standard library or lxml are great choices. They parse XML into an object tree and provide various ways to traverse and manipulate it. Both have tutorials and should be easy to start using.

Nominal Animal · 05-10-2012, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by audriusk

For this xml.etree.ElementTree from Python's standard library or lxml are great choices.

Agreed. (By the associative arrays I meant the structures you'd use internally in the application, extracted from the ElementTree in this case. Accessing the data dynamically via the ElementTree would be a bit cumbersome for e.g. search functionality.)

The Python 2 vs. Python 3 differences are a bit annoying in this regard, however; so do consider whether you wish to use Python 2 or Python 3, before selecting the library, and starting the implementation.

In my opinion, Python 2.7 + PyQt4 + etree would be my choice for a cross-platform utility -- only requirements being Python 2.7 + PyQt4, and both are available in easy packages for practically all platforms --, but I'd be aware of the need to transition to Python 3 in a few years. In a corporate-type environment where the Python 3 packages are guaranteed to be installed, I'd go with Python 3 instead.

Xeratul · 05-10-2012, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snark1994

Firstly, don't put "urgent" in your thread titles. What're urgent to me are my own problems, not yours

What sort of thing are you looking for? Do you mean an interactive programme which will allow you to browse through and amend contact details, or just a script that will do something predefined to all the contacts? If you're a bit more specific, then we should be able to help you

Thank you for your improvements. I have changed the title, and content. It is indeed better.

For browsing indeed. A good example would be abook where one can browse and edit the contacts. I may post a screenshot: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e/e8/Abook.png

"For this xml.etree.ElementTree from Python's standard library or lxml are great choices. " sounds relatively comfortable methods...

Computing / Thinking how... http://www.ericwestbrook.com/images/...g?s=1181746040

Snark1994 · 05-11-2012, 05:17 AM

The screenshot you posted looks like it uses the curses module for python, a tutorial for which is here. If you have any problems, post back here and we'll be glad to help you