Fair And Biased

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Command line xpath script

Here's a script I've been using to run XPath queries from the command line.  It's handy for unit testing. If your code does a lot of XPath stuff, it'll be useful to unit test the query without running the whole program.  The script shown here is simple, free, and only requires the free Ruby runtime.

# This script executes an XPath query against an XML file
# Syntax: xapth.rb <filename> "xpath query goes here"
# This code is based on an example from: _Ruby Cookbook_, "Navigating a Document with XPath"
require 'rexml/document'

# Get command line params
filename = ARGV[0]
xpathqry = ARGV[1]

# Read in XML file
xmlfile = ''
File.open(filename, "r") { |f| xmlfile = f.read }

# Create Xml Document from file contents
doc = REXML::Document.new xmlfile
puts "Using XPATH=" + xpathqry

# Run xpath query on XML document, and print the results
REXML::XPath.each(doc, xpathqry) { |val| puts "#{val}" }

Save the above script to a file called xpath.rb, and run like so:

xpath myxml.xml "/xpath/query/goes/@here"

With a little modification, this script can read from STDIN instead of a file, if you're into the whole piping/filtering thing.

I Used to Hate Timesheets

Every couple of years, I find a personal productivity tool I end up using regularly.  Last time, it was backpackit (a no-hassle Todo List).  This time it's Slimtimer.com (a timesheet killing time tracker), which:

• Makes something everyone hates to do, very easy and somewhat fun...
• It's easy to use
• It's free

Big thanks to Screeniac for their demo.

Is .NET CF Headed Toward J2ME?

AddressOf has a long post that talks about the modifications being made to the .NET Compact Framework to run on XBox 360.  They're taking out the VB namespace, and AddressOf (being a VB-centric blog) is taking issue with that.  Looking past the C# vs VB tone of the post, I can't help but notice how this is similar to the whole J2ME problem that Java has.  Namely, how J2ME is split into the CDC and cLdc specs which are both compact versions of the Java runtime, but targetted at different devices. 

I say problem because this sort of split creates the exactly the kind of issues that AddressOf is blogging about.  Sounds like Microsoft is taking a similar path now by forking .NET CF.  And it's not 100% clear from the post, but according to this, you may only be able to write .NET CF for Xbox 360 using C#.  Anyway, aside from an interesting high-level architecture note it doesn't really bother me.  I like C# and being able to write for XBox is still way cool.

Developing for XBox With Familiar Tools

I got into software for game development.  I don't know how, but somewhere along the line, the goal changed to writing software for large corporations and governments, and the consulting work that surrounds it.   Fortunately, Jason Zander talks about bringing .NET development tool support to the XBox.  Even if I don't write any games, it would be cool to have the ability to write code for a gaming console using familiar tools (VS.Net) and APIs (.NET Framework).