[Asterisk-Users] Changes to manager outputs - A discussion

[Peter Svensson]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Asterisk wrote:

> In my mind, (yes, a small one compared to the giants walking around 
> here) There are several advantages in this method:
> 
> a) Parsing one line of data per record is in order of magnitude easier 
> to code.

Not really, unless you have to invent string handling first. It is very 
easy in C++/perl/java etc. It is not even hard in C with no libraries at 
all.

> b) As mentioned, further fields can be added at any time without 
> breaking code

The current format is tagged. How much easier can it get to add more 
fields? At the moment the order is not fixed either which is nice from a 
flexibility point. You can have optional fields that ar only output if 
they make sense.

> c) output can be exported directly into spreadsheets

True, but a trivial amount of script magic can transform the current 
tagged format into whatever you want. For more major post processing 
converting it to xml first may be useful/flexible.

> I know that perhaps I've talked a load of BS - I would appreciate it if 
> people could comment on this before I head up a blind alley. I feel that 
> it would be more useful and easier for us as developers if there were a 
> common event manager layout, rather than a fixed number of lines per 
> action type / event type, and one that follows a more common data / 
> record layout.

It is not fixed, I think thats is why you are thinking along these lines. 
It is a tagged format. Given the nature of the data that is sent (what 
fields are valid may vary) a tagged format is probably the only sane way 
of representing the data.

Peter