New to forum / looking to help

[chris]

hello

i'm working on a beer related application and came upon the beerxml site when looking for common exchange formats.

i think a standard format is a great idea, but seems like the XSD isn't fully finished?

i have read through the forum posts, but most seem dated so i'm not sure what the current status is.

could anybody tell me what the current state of the XSD is, what the task list looks like and if any help is needed?

thanks
chris

[AntonW]

Hi Chris,

A draft of the v2 XSD is available although I can't necessarily say it's 100% 'finished'.  I believe that most of the major issues have been resolved at this point, but the XSDs still need to be used to provide data to an actual beermaking program.  In addition, I need to complete the update to the ProMash & BeerSmith BeerXML v2 converter applications to provide some test data and check that BeerXML v2 will allow beer recipe interoperability.

If there are minor modifications that need to be made as a result of being used in an actual beer recipe program, then the v2 draft would probably be updated to pull in those changes.

So please review the v2 XSDs and let me know if you have questions,

-Anton

[chris]

Hi Chris,

A draft of the v2 XSD is available although I can't necessarily say it's 100% 'finished'.  I believe that most of the major issues have been resolved at this point, but the XSDs still need to be used to provide data to an actual beermaking program.  In addition, I need to complete the update to the ProMash & BeerSmith BeerXML v2 converter applications to provide some test data and check that BeerXML v2 will allow beer recipe interoperability.

If there are minor modifications that need to be made as a result of being used in an actual beer recipe program, then the v2 draft would probably be updated to pull in those changes.

So please review the v2 XSDs and let me know if you have questions,

-Anton

hi anton;

where am i able to obtain the latest xsd's?

also do you have a task list of what needs to get done / tested / etc that i can possibly help with?

what are your converter apps written in? i'm mainly focused on java, but do a little C when i can

[AntonW]

Hi Chris,

You can find the latest XSDs at:

http://www.speakeasy.org/~antonw/beer_xml/

Version 2_05 was the last stable version where everything was working.

I found some changes to include for v2_06 files so I've uploaded them in an archive, but it looks like I haven't completed splitting out and specializing the GrainType from the FermentableType.  The major change for that set of files added a *.v2.* so that multiple versions of the BeerXML XSDs could be thrown in the same directory and still operate correctly.

So overall, the tasks that still remain are:

Review existing XSDs - keeping a eye out for useability
Finish the specialization/merge for the GrainType
Construct simple recipe formulation program using BeerXML2
Update BeerXML2 converters (ProMash, BeerSmith)
Test interoperability between BeerXML2-based program, BeerSmith and ProMash
Update Documentation and examples based on the newest XSDs

 
The converter applications are written in C++ (procedural style) using Win32 MSXML com objects to parse and write the XML.  I'm in the process of refactoring the procedural C++ into a more workable object orientated structure - since the converters have mostly degenerated into a complex tangle of spaghetti code.

Hope that helps,
-Anton