Nmap Development mailing list archives
RE: How do YOU use Nmap XML?
From: "Yvan G.J. Boily" <yboily () seccuris com>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:40:28 -0600
By no means am I am XML expert, however I do use XML a lot in the reporting tools I have created for my employer, as well as my content management system for my own personal web page. My understanding of it is such that XML elements are used to encapsulate data sets, while attributes define properties of that dataset. Since the hosts element details the number of hosts that are up, down, and the total, this indicates a set of properties of the dataset. There is no real way that this data could be extended either; a host is either up or it is down. That makes it a discrete value. Using a full element would increase the time (trivially) to parse the file, however, the larger impact is that it is not as readable (to a human). XML is meant to be a format that is interchangeable, but its biggest advantage over other data formats is that it can be read (ideally) by people as well as by machines. This is a crucial part of interoperability as programmers (mostly human) have to be able to read XML input and output to be able to verify the implementations during the development cycle. Just my opinion... But for what its worth, the reporting tools I mentioned do integrate NMAP output, as well as a number of other tools. Yvan Boily
-----Original Message----- From: Nils Magnus [mailto:magnus () linuxtag org] Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:16 AM To: Okan Demirmen Cc: Fyodor; nmap-dev () insecure org Subject: Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Re, On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 08:54:16AM -0500, Okan Demirmen wrote:On Mon 2004.11.15 at 22:48 -0800, Fyodor wrote:I am currently working on a chapter for the O'Reilly Nmapbook whichcovers all of the Nmap output formats. The normal,grepable, and evens|<riPt KidDi3 output formats are relatively straightforward. However, I believe that the XML output is under-utilizedbecause manypeople fail to recognize the power of the format or don'tunderstandall the tools for processing and transforming XML.[...]I've tried many of the Namp/XML parsing perl modules out there, and the only one I liked so far was Nmap::Parser by Anthony G Persaud. It's small and simple. However, I still have many other self-written modules wrapping around Nmap::Parser.Although XML may be helpful at times, I have still gives me some headache. The basic syntax may be specified, but there lots of unanswered questions. Example: nmap generates the following output: ... <hosts up="1" down="0" total="1" /> ... This is perfect from a syntax point of view, but why isn't it formatted as <hosts> <up> 1 </up> <down> 0 </down> </hosts> ? No XML evangelist was able to help me on this issue so far. The Perl-Parser is ok, but if you compare the amount of time to get something useful out of an XML-parser compared to a grep over "-oM", the XML will currently always lose. Regards, Nils Magnus Program-Chair LinuxTag 2004 Free Conference Program LinuxTag 2004: Where .com meets .org - magnus () linuxtag org --------------------------------------------------------------------- For help using this (nmap-dev) mailing list, send a blank email to nmap-dev-help () insecure org . List archive: http://seclists.org
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Current thread:
- How do YOU use Nmap XML? Fyodor (Nov 15)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Paul Johnston (Nov 16)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Okan Demirmen (Nov 16)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Nils Magnus (Nov 16)
- RE: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Yvan G.J. Boily (Nov 16)
- Message not available
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Nils Magnus (Nov 16)
- XML is a beautiful thing [was: How do YOU use Nmap XML?] Brett Campbell (Nov 19)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Nils Magnus (Nov 16)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? David G. Cheney (Nov 16)
- Re: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Joshua T. Corbin (Nov 17)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: How do YOU use Nmap XML? Sean Warnock (Nov 16)