[tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
- From: "Jim Cant" <cant_jim@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:34:30 -0400
Message bodyThis would be a good way to be able to generate Java Date objects
which might be useful if we wanted to determine day of week to calculate the
difference between two dates.
but then .... what if BEL is presenting their dates in a way that won't parse
but would still be human readable? (Probably unlikely). That would argue for
just treating them as Strings. After all, "The Fourth of July" and "The ides
of March" are meaningful dates. ;-)
Interesting design question.
jim
From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:49 PM
To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
Regular Expression Library
Regarding regular expressions --- extracting time and date information, markup
code.
There are single regular expression statements that can identify numerous time
and date formats at the following site:
http://regexlib.com/DisplayPatterns.aspx
There is a separate section on this site dedicated to markup code.
I was thinking that regular expressions may be helpful in identifying dates and
times that occur within the description portion of the events.
RegEx-identified times could be confirmed by the user as being a start or end
time, etc., and then extracted programmtically to be entered into the local BEL
calendar. The goal of the regEx would be to identify any reasonably formatted
time and date and to convert it to match "calendar" interface methods. I see
it working much like a spell checker, scanning text and prompting the user when
it finds mathches.
I don't see this as a clean way to obtain event details, but also don't see
another approach at the moment.
Rob
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tssg-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tssg-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Beatrice W. Chaney
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:10 PM
To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
A few explanations:
1. The http://validator.w3.org/ site is owned by the W3C standards
organization (World Wide Web Consortium), which manages the HTML and XML
industry standards, as a service to web developers.
To validate a site just click the above link and enter the URL of the site you
would like to validate, in this case http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ and click
on 'Check'. It comes up with 70 errors.
To see what those errors mean, go to http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ and
choose the menu View -> Page Source. This displays the actual HTML generated by
the site and you can see the errors (validator gives line numbers)
Most of the validation complaints are non-conformant XHTML syntax (its header
specifies 'strict') but some are mis-matched end tags such as end tags
</script> found without a preceding <script> tag, etc...
2. Unfortunately, the fact that the RSS validates (it does) does not mean that
the content validates, as the RSS format just wraps the content with all the <
and >, etc.. converted to < and > (the control characters are 'escaped')
precisely to avoid being thrown off if the content is invalid. RSS feeds must
validate.
To get the XML format of the content fragments, we first have to run them
through a 'regular expression'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression) that replaces the <,
>, etc... with < and > , ... again, and then try to parse these fragments as
XML.
3. To view the RSS XML, just enter the URL:
http://www.bostoneventslist.com/rss.xml in your browser.
4. The fact that the http://www.bostoneventslist.com/ does not validate is not
a direct cause of a potential issue with the content items format, as it
appears content items are generated dynamically (do not show up in the source).
So, we still need to determine whether the unescaped content items are
well-formed, and if not 'tweak' them to be well-formed. While RSS is guaranteed
to validate, I don't believe we can rely on content (that is, the
<description></description> elements) being well-formed.
TODO: write or find an 'unescape' regular expression.
Bea
Jim Cant wrote:
Hey, good news!
How did you validate it?
jim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:11:08 -0700
From: jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
BTW, the RSS validated with no errors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julie (Dingee) Carwellos
Web and IT Project Analyst, User Experience and Interaction Designer
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos
--- On Tue, 9/28/10, Julie Carwellos <jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Julie Carwellos <jcarwellos@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 6:06 PM
Bea,
It isn't; I get a consistent 11 errors for each single-event web
page (using FireBug to validate HTML).
Additionally, each event page is styled with TABLEs, rather than
floating DIVs, so we can't use a handheld.css style sheet to load the URL into
a WebView and have only the event information display (using display:none; for
the outer columns).
-julie
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Julie (Dingee) Carwellos
Web and IT Project Analyst, User Experience and Interaction Designer
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/jdingeecarwellos
--- On Tue, 9/28/10, Beatrice W. Chaney <bwchaney@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Beatrice W. Chaney <bwchaney@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: [tssg-tech] Re: <link> "Working with XML on Android"
To: tssg-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 4:18 PM
Hi,
I suspect (but haven't verified it) that the BostonEventList data
might possibly not be well-formed.
I ran the site through the W3 validator http://validator.w3.org/
some time ago (and again now), and it comes up with a number of errors. Having
a site be valid XHTML is a critical prerquisite to getting on top of Google's
list.
If this is the case (first, need to verify that well-formedness is
really the problem) there are tidy-up utilities available, but we'd have to see
whether they are suitable for Android.
Thanks,
Bea
Harry Henriques wrote:
Hello,
I think Bea referenced the IBM website regarding RSS parser
alternatives. I downloaded the application from the website, and massaged the
files. I was able to get the application to successfully create an apk and
load successfully into the Android Emulator. The application is partially
working, but I could use some help debugging it. The application doesn't parse
the BostonEventsList. For some reason, it stops before displaying a ListView.
I delivered the work I have finished to the SVN Repository in a
Android project called MessageList.
I will continue to work on it as time permits. I've only just
begun to fight.
Regards,
Harry Henriques
Java Developer
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