[KLUG Members] Python XML to CSV

[adam at morrison-ind.com]

> I highly suggest AWK.

Me too,  I *LOVE* awk.  I've been using awk since before that was a LINUX.

> It's awesome for these type of problems.

Yep.  They should make "awk" bumper stickers.  AWK is a way to solve parsing
problems without the bloat (I finally get an excuse to use that word 
myself) or
complexity of a monster like Perl.  One binary - /usr/bin/gawk - and it 
works or
it doesn't.  And I've never met a UNIX system without AWK.

Personally, I'd *NEVER* >>choose<< Python as a language to do 
*ANYTHING*.  It is
some computer science geeks love child.  Everytime I use Python I'm 
reminded of
the computer science dweeb you lectured me about the syntactical purity of
COBOL - Python and COBOL both make the EVIL choice of running or not 
based upon
your use of *WHITESPACE*!!!  Give me a break,  if someone thinks THAT 
is a GOOD
idea they should head down to the nearest hospital and have an MRI 
immediately.

BUT our business integreation server (BIE) supports Jython actions in 
workflows.
Jython in Python in Java.  It is very neat since you can use ALL the Java
functionality (which is *ALLOT*) from a script oriented dynamically typed
language.  It is very useful for writing little bits of glue for moving data
from one format to another or one source to another.  In spite of the
horridness of Python I'd recommend Jython as worth checking out - and O'Reilly
has a "Jython Essentials" book.