GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 580661
add XML export and XML upload
Last modified: 2009-06-06 20:33:23 UTC
related to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=559099 and http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=549563 it would be nice to implement a XML export. This will enable other electronic "time-punch machines" importing this data into the staff account. Therefor a per day upload via hamster to a defined Webspace/WEbdav or perhaps via SOAP (??) will be the killer feature ;)
XML export is kind of on it's way. For import to external system one might want to look into conduit. Hamster itself should not really deal with synchronization.
If you want XML, first design a schema and get people to agree on using it in other apps. Until then we'll do better by sticking to PDF for humans and CSV/DBus for machines.
ok, if CSV is the correct exchange format for DBus applications like conduit, I agree and whould like to close this request for now. Thanks, ~marcel
Ah, I didn't mean csv over DBus, I meant that XML *as a format on disk* is not more useful than csv unless you have a very specific schema and tools that already consume its applications. Whatever protocol DBus speaks internally is an implementation detail :)
still, i plan to implement a dumb version of both CSV and XML, because more people happen to have mad excel and xml parsing skills than ability to talk to DBUS, because the first does not require much fiddling, and thus is friendlier. i hope i'll get something in by this weekend, but if not, then at some point later. plan is simple: filter out data by date and category, pick and order columns and choose export format html/csv/tsv/xml. We will store configuration in gconf for next time when report is required. http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/edit-explore-report/
Wouldn't iCal .ics be more useful than custom XML? Unless you have an already existing XML schema in mind I don't see how it's any better than CSV while requiring significantly more processing power to parse and space to store.
i will look into it too - haven't fiddled much with iCal. But for these exporty importy i-work-in-a-corporate-environment-with-a-braindead-time-tracking-mega-software (i've seen some) type of things where you would like to omit certain details (like description or category), a dumbed version of xml (not sure if it even qualifies as xml, but i think it does) something like <xml> <facts> <fact> <id>1</id> <start_time>12:34</start_time> ... </fact> <fact> ... </facts> could be of benefit, dead easy to construct and solve number of the issues. Getting DBUS end talking properly is of course of higher priority, but my head works on it's own, not really following priorities. bad head! :) I will assign this bug to me, and reopen it because we have some noteworthy discussion here.
first part basically is xml export and second part is import, which will be done via DBUS if at all. marking this as dupe of bug 549604 which i will close in a second, since now a rudimentary xml export is in git master *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 549604 ***