Zaurus addressbook.xml parser

[Ryszard]

A pretty rough addressbook.xml parser i whipped up. I intend to use it in combination with apache and gnokii to send sms's..

Given the addressbook is actually xml one could probably install one of the many xml parsers available on CPAN, but this is good enuff for me.. :-)

Improvements welcome.. ;-)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

undef $/;
open(FH, 'addressbook.xml') || die "$!";
my $ab = <FH>;
$ab =~ s/\/\>//g;
my @book = split(/\<Contact/, $ab);

my %addresses;
foreach my $address (@book) {
    if ($address =~ /Uid/) {
       my $tmp = $address;
       $tmp =~ /(Uid\=.+\")/;
       my $Uid = $1;
       my @fields = split(/\"\s+/ , $address);
       foreach my $field (@fields) {
           $field =~ s/\"//g;
           my @data = split(/=/,$field);
           $addresses{$Uid}{$data[0]} = $data[1];
       }
    }
}

foreach my $Uid (keys %addresses) {
    print "$Uid: \n";
    foreach (keys %{$addresses{$Uid}} ) {
        print "    $_=$addresses{$Uid}{$_}\n";
    }
    print "\n";
}

[davido]

It's my understanding that Sharp moved away from the XML format for the Zaurus's PIM applications in favor of a proprietary format as of the v3.10 Sharp ROM version update.

Only pre-3.10 Sharp ROM's (and presumably the various Open Source ROMs) store their PIM data in XML format. The unfortunate thing is that the 3.10 ROM is so far superior to the older Sharp ROM's (IMHO) that it's worth upgrading even if it means having to use the proprietary PIM data format.

[Ryszard]

true, i should have pointed out i'm using http://www.openzaurus.org 3.2..

[Aristotle]

I think you're going through way too much effort for a breakable parser. XML::LibXML or XML::Twig make proper parsing for simple stuff no more difficult than a bit of regex twiddling is, and will also handle complex cases. If you post a representative snippet of your input I can whip up some libxml code that won't be longer than half your script. And much easier to read.

[Ryszard]

Yup, I agree, using an XMP Parser would be better, (and i'm pretty familiar with some of the ones on CPAN).

The goal here was to produce something that had zero dependencies for use on my Zaurus, which is a PDA.

I wanted something that i could carry around or have quick access to which was the simplest to install / use. I acknowledge all the failings, i agree / know about the parsers, this is just "something cool" which works for me and my data.

FYI, a sample record,

<Contact FirstName="FFFFFF" LastName="LLLL" FileAs="LLLL, FFFFFF" Busi
+nessMobile="[phone]" DefaultEmail="[e-mail]" Emails=
+"[e-mail]  " HomePhone="1111 111 111" Gender="0"  WorkEma
+il="[e-mail]" rid="53" rinfo="0" Uid="-1068731722" />

Update:The entire program is now on the Zaurus-users mailing list.

[William G. Davis]

[O]ne could probably install one of the many xml parsers available on CPAN

Or use one of the parsers that came with your distribution, like XML::Parser.