From: Sam Roberts <sroberts@...>
Date: 2005-01-06T13:57:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Data Structure Query Abstractions/Patterns

Quoteing vanweerd@gmail.com, on Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 01:20:40PM +0900:
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 10:10:26 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > Quoteing vanweerd@gmail.com, on Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 03:26:22AM +0900:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I've written a small ruby application that uses YAML and the
> > > associated hash/array Ruby structure.
> > 
> > > I am now looking to do some query-like actions on the basic ruby data
> > > structure. I'm wondering if there are any packages of
> > > query-abstractions that make sense for Ruby in a generalized sort-of
> > > way. E.g. XPath and XQuery for XML, SQL for RDMS, etc.
> > 
> > This is why you might want to consider XML... then you can just USE
> > XPath.
> > 
> > Sam
> >
> 
> This is looking like the most reasonable choice at the moment- though
> not the most fun, so I may continue with a Ruby solution for now.

I don't know, what's not fun about XML?

Rant: for years the world fills up with adhoc 1/2 solutions to data
structuring, then people decide that reinventing the wheel is dumb, and
make XML, and start adding tons of useful tools to it, like query
languages. The folks come along and say 'its too big and complicated"
and start again... There will soon be a YPath (YAML query language),
mark my words!

Ok, I feel better.

That aside, it sounds kind of cool making a rubyish query language for
ruby data structures... maybe XPath from Rexml could actually be abused
for your purpose, or used to implement a similar language?

Have fun!
Sam