Storing Python in XML

allotropic

Quote:

Original post by Penance Short story is that I want to store snippets of Python code in XML. Kind of similar to how WoW GUI elements can store Lua snippets in their XML.

Are you going to pass them to Python eval() or exec or something? If so, why are you using XML, instead of just writing one big Python expression to describe a nested data structure?

I'm using IronPython as the scripting language for an XNA project.

The UI is customizable and stored in XML, and each UI element has events and inputs that are scripted.

ie:<Element> <Position x="" y="" z=""/>  <OnLoad>     ...python code...  </OnLoad></Element>

Another idea would be to have a separate file maybe with the same name as the XML file but different extension and just write the function names in the XML file.

 ui.xml                      | ui.py -----------------------------|--------------------------<Element>                    | ... <Position x="" y="" z=""/>  | def on_load():  <OnLoad>                   |    ...     on_load                 |    ...  </OnLoad>                  |    ...</Element>                   | ...

Good point, Kambiz. I actually do support that currently, I just thought it'd be nice for devs to be able to put little snippets directly in the XML.

I came up with a first attempt at a solution last night.

Basically I walk the string until I get the first non-whitespace character, then walk from that point backwards until I get the first newline character, counting any tabs I come across.

Then I build up a string with that many tabs and do a Replace(tabSequence, "") and Trim() the original string.

Won't handle all cases, but it's a start. I guess when everyone keeps getting syntax errors and bugging me about it all the time I'll just force them to use the separate code file method ;)

Keep in mind that you can use tabs and spaces. AFAIK tabs are 8 spaces in Python.

You might look at how existing Python template languages like Kid and Genshi do it.