On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 15:02, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote: > On 24 Nov 2004 09:16:03 +0000, Peter Foldiak > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [...] > > I would really like to implement this for the next version of Hans' file > > system. > > I don't undersand how you want to use Xpath for not XML file. > I agree with you that the idea behind Xpath is cool but I fail to > unserstand how it can be applied to anything but XML
My message was mainly about XML, for which it is easy. For non-XML, you need some other way of knowing the file format. The example that originally came up in this thread was /etc/passwd/[username] In this case, the passwd file has a known format. Other file types, like LaTex, html, jpeg also have (at least partially) known formats. Some selection should be possible even for unknown formats (e.g. byte range, line-range). There could also be some way of specifying a new format but I don't know how to do this well. You could give names (like filenames) to parts of files. But I think the first step would be to concentrate on XML, and worry about the rest later. Peter
