Re: xmltv

[Daniel Drake <dsd gentoo org>]

Daniel Nixon wrote:
> I want to write a beagle filter for xmltv files, but the problem I see
> is that xmltv files simply have the .xml extension and the
> application/xml mimetype. Is there a way to write an xml filter that
> only supports a particular DTD?

I'm not sure this is the right approach (I looked into XMLTV support 
before).

Generally with XMLTV, the data files are kept in a single private 
directory which belongs to a program, rather than scattered around the 
filesystem.

This is comparable to evolution mail which keeps mails in ~/.evolution, 
in contrast to documents which are found anywhere and everywhere on the 
filesystem.

In the first case (email), you want to add support for the 
*application*. We have an evolution backend for this.

In the second case (documents), you want to add support for the 
*format*. We have (e.g.) openoffice filters for this, and the filesystem 
backend does the other dirty work.

Unless I'm mistaken (I'm not an xmltv user), you want to support the 
application here. Your general game plan would look like:

1. Find the application config file
2. Parse the store location from the config file
3. Enumerate all files in the config file, passing them to the 
appropriate filter

An example of this is the Gaim log filter. The Gaim logs aren't in any 
special format, they don't have their own mimetype, but they do have a 
special storage location. The GaimLog backend finds them, and enforces 
that they are filtered using the ImLog filter.

Displaying xmltv search results is one thing, but you also need to 
consider how you are going to act on them when the user clicks on the 
search results. This was the major showstopper when I was looking into 
this - there didn't appear to be any standard application which would 
allow Beagle to say "display the file foo.xml" or "display the program 
at 8pm on Tuesday".

Daniel