Thanks for the quick response! The PIC32s are doing an HTTP Post of the
XML to the server. So far, I have 3 or 4 line PHP program that appends the
XML to a file and emails it to me so I can see that it's working. I've
started on having that PHP script parse the XML and pass to MySQL, but, as
I was setting up the tables in MySql, I got to wondering about just using
a flat file holding the XML. Though the XML is verbose, the file would
still probably be smaller than the MySQL file with its constant field
widths. Constant record size files are certainly easier to search, but it
still seems like a random record size file could be searched pretty
quickly. I'm thinking of a binary search where'd you'd read in double the
maiximum record size. There's guaranteed to be a complete record in there.
String search for the openting tag, then parse from there. But, as you
point out, PHP already has support for MySQL, and  has functions to parse
the XML (XimpleXML, etc.). I MIGHTbe able to use the PHP XML parsing to
deal with the appended file I'm currently generating, but this is, I
believe, all read into RMA and then dealt ith there. Not super scalable.

Again, thanks for the ideas! Maybe I' back to MySql.

Harold




> Certainly stuffing the data in MySQL gives you great flexibility.  It
> shouldn't be a big deal to write a PHP or Perl script to stuff the data
> into the database.  This makes reporting a whale of a lot easier, too.
> It sounds as if you are already generating XML files.  No reason you
> couldn't just suck the XML from the PIC into the database and eliminate
> the intermediate file.  But I presume you have already sorted out the
> messy issues of not overwriting old files, etc.
>
> If you aren't familiar with PHP think of it as sloppy C.  It is a little
> easier to get to the database in PHP than C, mostly because PHP is
> interpreted so changes are quicker when you are sorting things out.  I
> also believe PHP has a library to make parsing the XML simpler, although
> I haven't used that myself.
>
> An easier (if not as elegant) solution is to convert the XML to SQL and
> suck it into the database through the command line interface.  A little
> bit of bash and you can automate this on the crontab.
>
> --McD
>
> On Sat, 2014-07-05 at 08:25 -0700, Harold Hallikainen wrote:
>> I have a bunch of pic32 systems posting xml to a server. I could have
>> the
>> server parse the xml and save the data in mysql. Another possibility
>> would
>> be to just append new xml to the old in a text file, then access the
>> data
>> in that file to generate reports. I like the simplicity of just saving
>> the
>> xml. I'd like to hear comments on this and suggested xml database
>> engines
>> to search the data. This is running on a centos system.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Harold
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> FCC Rules Updated Daily at http://www.hallikainen.com - Advertising
>> opportunities available!
>> Not sent from an iPhone.
>
>


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