Re: Add XML support to NSE

[Patrick Donnelly <batrick () batbytes com>]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Ron <ron () skullsecurity net> wrote:
> On 09/29/2009 01:57 AM, Patrick Donnelly wrote:
> > Generally we only add libraries when a script part of the trunk makes
> > use of that library. You will need to also give us a viable script
> > before we consider using this library addition.
>
> I agree, but I think it's a good idea to keep this patch in mind and
> evaluate its potential inclusion when we DO run into the need to parse XML
> in a script (and I'm sure it's going to happen at some point -- it's only a
> matter of time).

I'm going to look at Duarte's patch more closely, but in response to
Ron's valid point, I want to say that there probably will be an XML
parser available soon but it most likely will not use a C library for
parsing. It is a matter of time before Roberto's (the architect of
Lua) LPeg [1] string pattern matching library (using PEGs) is part of
the standard distribution (and consequently, part of NSE). It's very
well suited for this type of parsing (in Lua!) so I am hesitant to
approve of any C libraries which assist in parsing some language/data
format. We need to carefully analyze C library additions because of
main executable bloat (we no longer use shared libraries). There is no
reason to add a C library where an equivalent Lua runtime loadable
(shared) library can work in its place.

[1] http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/lpeg/lpeg.html

-- 
-Patrick Donnelly

"Let all men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely
ford that see the shallows."

- Benjamin Franklin

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