[RE: [Re: [lazarus] How are we going to store component data?]]

[Michael A. Hess]

Michal Bukovjan wrote:
> 
> I'll try to straighten things up.

<large portion snipped>
 
> Maybe we still don't understand each other, in which case I apologize
> and beg for further explanations.

I think I get what our confusion is here. We aren't talking about the
same thing. You are talking about how the IDE-RAD will save and read the
file data. I'm not worried about that yet. How that is done or what is
done can't be decided until we decide what I am talking about.

Let's assume that the RAD has created said file, be that a binary file,
source code file, XML file, whatever.

How do we get the code the developer wrote and this RAD generated file
together. In Delphi the DFM (binary file) is attached to the application
in a resource area of the application. When the program runs it reads
this information when a TForm is loaded. It creates instances of any
declared objects and sets up any required parameters. Fine.

We don't have a resource area in FPC apps (except for apps built for
Windows). So how do we get the IDE-RAD built file and the code talking.
Either we have to design and build some sort of resource area and then
build a binobj utility to add this to the application or we use an
{$I...} mechanism to add the data into the source. The data for the
include could be source code that was saved by the IDE-RAD or if desired
(probably best idea) is to have the IDE-RAD save the data as XML. Then
before the actual compile is performed a utility is run that converts
the XML data into pascal source code for inclusion.

The third option would be to tack the XML data onto the end of the
application but then that would mean an XML parser would need to be
included in every application. I'm not sure what kind of overhead that
adds.

If we use the XML to source utility it means that other layout engines
could be designed and built to produce the XML file.


So is that what we are looking at. The IDE-RAD saves and works with an
XML file which is then converted to source code for inclusion during
compliation????

-- 
==== Programming my first best destiny! ====

Michael A. Hess      Miracle Concepts, Inc.
mhess at miraclec.com   http://www.miraclec.com