EVE Technology Lab

Hi all

I have been putting together a Java library to recursively parse the different XML's made available by CCP for data extraction
and plotting them into different graphs.

XML call overview
http://eveonline-third-party-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/xmlapi/index.html

And have been wondering about the XML structure, example
http://eveonline-third-party-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/xmlapi/character/char_killmails.html

What is the higher meaning in how CCP structure these XML files?
All XML files return the
return
rowset
row
structure, with small changes for specific calls such as killmails that contains victim

Also a good example where all meaning (for me) goes out the window is rowset name="attackers"
'attackers' is an XML element called rowset with an attribute of name="attackers" instead of something like.
attacker
character
characterID-characterID
name-name
and so on.

What is the overall benefit for this extensive use of meta data in the way its done.

Are we saving 5 CPU cycles pr call?
Saving 2GB's pr user because they pre build these files and store them somewhere?
Is it just because this was the simpler solution?

Also attributes can't contain multiple values so CCP creates a "single" value as a continuesly string
Example: columns="value1,value2,value3,value4"

But if you created an XML element you would be able to assign that multiple values instead of creating a continuesly string.

If anyone has some knowledge about why this is done the way it currently is, please share your knowledge!

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Sorry for the formatting, but apparently you cant put anything that starts with < and is self closing even in code blocks. And a single character can break the forum with (input must not contain HTML)

Thanks Hel O'Ween!

Very helpful info. Though i think the output CCP delivers could be vastly improved.

I played around with my own MySQL server for generating XML and parsed it through XMLStarlet. Which was quite nice with little effort.

Is it going out in favor of Crest?
Do you by any chance know when?

Thank you for the links! Will check them all out.

So far i dont plan on making anything available as a 3'rd party dev. Im just using the XML API for my own personal needs in terms of market and PI related information.