[odf-devel] Python API ready for OpenDocument

[Søren Roug]

I sent out the email just before I went to bed last night. That's the reason it was a bit terse. I had expected that those who were in America and Australia would have commented during the night in Europe, but you're the first.

During the weekend I'll add some (hopefully a lot) more examples to the manual. Then I'll announce it on the discussion list.

Once I came upon the idea to parse the RelaxNG file, programming went smoothly. And it guarantees a complete API. I didn't mention that the library complains if the user tries to add illegal attributes and sub-elements. For someone who knows the API by heart, this isn't necessary, but who does?

If you look at grammar.py you'll see all the rules. A 10-line python script could rewrite them to Perl, if you're so inclined.

|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Jean-Marie Gouarné [mailto:jean.marie.gouarne at online.fr] 
|| Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:40 PM
|| To: Søren Roug; ODF Development List
|| Subject: Re: [odf-devel] Python API ready for OpenDocument
|| 
|| Le jeudi 4 janvier 2007 23:48, Soren Roug a écrit :
|| > Hi
|| > Just a quick note to tell you that I've reached Alpha state on my
|| > OpenDocument API for Python. You can play with it by doing:
|| 
|| This toolbox looks very powerful ! My Python skills are very 
|| poor but I can 
|| easily understand the design and the features through the 
|| documentation.
|| 
|| IMHO, you should make a bit more marketing about this API 
|| (i.e. it should be 
|| more visible among the Fellowship's annoucements and a 
|| presentation page 
|| would probably be welcome at opendocument.xml.org)
|| 
|| > Idea: port it to Perl... Anyone?
|| 
|| Hopefully, a part of the job is done !
|| 
|| I'm the developer/mantainer of the "Perl OpenDocument 
|| Connector", which is 
|| advertised on the OASIS ODF forum:
|| http://opendocument.xml.org/perl-opendocument-connector
|| 
|| This Perl API is available as a regular, platform-neutral 
|| CPAN package and 
|| through a few platform-specific, derived distributions 
|| (Activestate PPM for 
|| Windows, Linux and Unix, Mandriva Linux RPM, and others). 
|| The reference 
|| distribution is here:
|| http://search.cpan.org/dist/OpenOffice-OODoc
|| 
|| As a consequence, the Perl/OpenDocument integration is of 
|| great interest for 
|| me; however it's a part-time, voluntary job, so I (all alone 
|| and without any 
|| sponsor) can't afford to embark upon a deep reengineering of 
|| the existing Perl 
|| Connector (which differs from your Python API by its basic 
|| design choices and 
|| not only by the implementation language). However, I could 
|| provide code and 
|| support for a new Perl/ODF project.
|| 
|| I suggest you to have a look at the following (old but not 
|| really obsolete) 
|| article (which doesn't require a Perl advanced knowledge), 
|| in order to 
|| understand the differences between ODFPY and Perl/OODoc. We 
|| could then, 
|| maybe, have a discussion about convergence issues ??
|| http://www.ddj.com/dept/lightlang/184416230
|| 
|| Best regards,
|| 
|| --
|| Jean-Marie Gouarné
|| http://jean.marie.gouarne.online.fr
|| http://www.arsaperta.com/en
||