To all,
We have collected information over the past few months on who is doing what with VOTABLE, where and how. Here is a quick summary for those who are interested:
VOTABLE software
There seem to be four packages available (so far) for handling VOTABLE documents (any others, or corrections to these, please contact me). They are:
A large set of Java classes for manipulating VOTABLE documents. The API is complete and documented. The software allows reading, writing, creating, and editing of VOTABLE documents. It supports DATA elements of the TABLEDATA, BINARY, and FITS formats. This is the most comprehensive implementation to date (that I am aware of) of a VOTABLE API.
2. VOTABLE Author: Eric Winter (elwinter-at-lheapop.gsfc.nasa.gov) (me!) URL: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/classx/pub/votable/index.html
A set of Perl classes, built on the XML::DOM Perl module and expat XML parser. Supports reading, creating, editing, and writing VOTABLE documents. Supports TABLEDATA and BINARY forms of the DATA element in VOTABLE documents. Used in the ClassX project at GSFC and in a few other projects at other sites.
3. VOTableParser
Author: Sonali Kale (sonali-at-pspl.co.in)
UTL: http://vo.iucaa.ernet.in/~voi/html/iucaawriteup.htm
A set of C++ classes for reading TABLEDATA-based VOTABLE documents. This package is based on the XALAN XSLT processor, and thus also provides XPath-based queries on the XML document.
4. VOTable::DOM
Author: Ray Plante (rplante-at-poplar.astro.uiuc.edu) URL: http://monet.astro.uiuc.edu/~rplante/VO/ (link to download is broken)
A Perl module based on XML::DOM for printing nicely-formatted VOTABLE documents.
Languages used
A couple of months ago, I broadcasted a question polling folks on the languages they were using for their VOTABLE (or just XML) development. I got 13 responses (or quasi-responses), and the results are as follows:
Perl: 8
Java: 4
C++: 1
C: 1 (hypothetically)
Python: 1 (suggested only?)
As you can see, our usage is running the gamut of available languages. Several folks also reported using PHP for their server scripting, but that is not used to parse VOTABLE documents directly.
Parsers
Not a lot of data available on this yet. Those folks using the VOTABLE Perl modules are using the expat parser, but I am not sure which parser is used by JAVAOT - does it use a parser bundled with the JDK? I am not a Java expert, so I'm not sure on this point.
I would appreciate any corrections or additions to this information, if anyone has any. It is encouraging to see a wide range of approaches being taken to handle VOTABLE documents.
Eric
Eric Winter, SSAI, NASA GSFC Code 662
elwinter-at-lheapop.gsfc.nasa.gov
(301) 286-2316 Office: T2, Room 56
Received on 2002-06-28Z13:49:12