data design

[Imbaud Pierre]

Szabolcs Nagy a écrit :
>>The lazy way to do this: have modules that initialize bunches of
>>objects, attributes holding the data: the object is somehow the row of
>>the "table", attribute names being the column. This is the way I
>>proceeded up to now.
>>Data input this way are almost "configuration data", with 2 big
>>drawbacks:
>>  - Only a python programmer can fix the file: this cant be called a
>>    configuration file.
>>  - Even for the author, these data aint easy to maintain.
>>
>>I feel pretty much ready to change this:
>>- make these data true text data, easier to read and fix.
>>- write the module that will make python objects out of these data:
>>the extra cost should yield ease of use.
>>
>>2 questions arise:
>>- which kind of text data?
>>     - csv: ok for simple attributes, not easy for lists or complex
>>     data.
>>     - xml: the form wont be easier to read than python code,
>>       but an xml editor could be used, and a formal description
>>       of what is expected can be used.
>>- how can I make the data-to-object transformation both easy, and able
>>   to spot errors in text data?
>>
>>Last, but not least: is there a python lib implementing at least part
>>of this dream?
> 
> 
> there is a csv parser and multiple xml parsers in python (eg 
> xml.etree)
I used both. both are ok, but only bring a low layer parsing.
> also there is a ConfigParser module (able to parse .ini 
> like config files)
Used this years ago, I had forgotten. Another fine data text format.
> 
> i personally like the python module as config file the most
> 
> eg if you need a bunch of key-value pairs or lists of data:
> * python's syntax is pretty nice (dict, tuples and lists or just 
> key=value)
But only python programmer editable!
> * xml is absolutely out of question
> * csv is very limited
> * .ini like config file for more complex stuff is not bad but then you 
> can use .py as well.
> 

Thanks a lot for your advices.