Human Readable Compact Extensible Data Interchange Format

When working with Lotus Domino databases I needed a simple and compact way to pull data from one database into another.

I wanted something that was human-readable, extensible, simple, order-agnostic and simple to process. After some experimentation I settled on an old idea to use delimited fields. But, I wanted to be able to add and remove fields and have them in any order. To do this I added a field name.

The format is

Compact = Field* ~

Field = ~ fieldname : data

The only constraints were:

1. The field name could not start with a "~"
2. The field name could not contain a ":"
3. The data could not contain a "~"

Since ":" is rarely used as a field name and "~" is rarely used in data, this was a small price to pay. If you need "~" in the data then there are many ways to do this. One way we used was to append XML-like data to the end of the Compact and then extract the data in a XML-like way.

To extract a data element we used code like this:

@left( @right( compact ; "~" + fieldname + ":" ); "~" )

This gets the string right of the "~fieldname:" and then returns data left of the "~".

Similar code can be used to extract the XML data:

@left( @right( XMLData ; "<" + fieldname + ">" ); "</" + fieldname + ">" )

(It is XML-like so you need to handle escape sequences yourself.)

Here are some examples. You can see we even carried code and XML-like data as data.

~ID:TS~SubID:VP~Icon:44~SubIcon:~SLANo:~Z1RT:2~Z2RT:2~Z1CT:8~Z2CT:8~Z1ET:7.2~Z2ET:7.2~Pri:Standard~Desc:Telephone Service:VoIP Service (Ericsson)~SubForm:VP~LocSubForm:Location~FailureCategories:~PeriodDef:~ReactionDef:~PBVer:4.3;0~NItems:~<242</ConPrice><InstPrice>0</InstPrice><MACPrice>@If(movecomplexity="0";56;movecomplexity="1";111;-1)</MACPrice><FRDSCauses>TS-VP</FRDSCauses><ResponseTime>0</ResponseTime><RepairTime>0</RepairTime><EscalateTime>0</EscalateTime><PBProductCode></PBProductCode><PBPrice>360</PBPrice><ExcludeDays></ExcludeDays><BusinessHours>[08:00]:[17:00]</BusinessHours><BillingAudit>Options(OP)~VM(OP)</BillingAudit><Applications></Applications><LineSpeeds></LineSpeeds><Interfaces></Interfaces><CDIDType></CDIDType><MIMSNoDef>PL15TE01</MIMSNoDef><AssetCategory></AssetCategory>

~RCCode:AM~RCTitle:Asset Management~MCode:~MCustCode:000001~MIDs:~Discount:20~DiscountConnect:10~

~LocA:PTSA13~Location:George St 47, Level 12N Conference Rm~Lat:30.123456~Long:151.123456~SiteZone:Metro~

Fog Machine

This is one of those Now-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-it problems.

I picked up a box with a fog machine (Antari F-160) and fog fluid in it from a recent council clean-up. Since it was being thrown out I doubted that it would work. And it didn't.

Apart from a blown fuse, the fog machine heated up but the fluid pump would not work. The pump would hum when power (240VAC) was applied but it would not pump so I decided it was seized and set to dismantling it in order to clean it.

There didn't appear to be anything wrong. Nothing was blocked, it was clean and no part seemed damaged. If I loosely assembled the pump it would work, but if it was tightly assembled the pump would just hum.

I decided that someone on the net would be able to verify that I was assembling it correctly. I searched for the part number "SP-12A" and "Fog" and I came across this page which had a link to a picture showing the order of the parts.

In my pump, the washer/seal (part 5) was in a different place. I corrected my assembly and it worked nicely. With this seal (perhaps it is a spacer) in the wrong place, a little orange seal is compressed too much and grips the piston so tightly that it no longer can move and the pump can only hum. With the seal in the correct place, the piston moves freely and all is well.

The machine uses a remote control to turn the heater on and it has a switch to operate the pump. It was clear that the remote control cable was damaged so I repaired it, but the pump would not operate when the switch was depressed. I found that the remote control socket had 3 broken solder joints which I repaired.

The fog machine now worked.

Apart from entertaining the kids, what can you do with a fog machine?

• Fill the house with fog and run a fire drill (get down low and Go Go Go!)
• Check for air conditioner ducting leaks (but I don't have air conditioning)
• Look for drafts around doors and windows
• Cool party feature
• Find exhaust leaks?
  

Maybe someone else has some thoughts.