World: r3wp

An ISAM-like solution is pretty handy for folks who want something 
more than plain-text storage but something less than a full-blown 
RDBMS.

I'd like a basic cross-platform data manager of the sort Ashley suggests.

That can then be used to build SQL type databases for those who want 
them. 

Or list type databases (for people like me who use that sort of approach 
a lot)
Or whatever.
No need to prematurely bind to the relational model/

What's your "list type databases"?

I'm all for "everything in" if it doesn't blow up the executable 
size. "Everything in" is one of the main reasons I use REBOL. Imagine 
if we had to include VID, network, etc. from external libraries...

An SQL type database is one where the basic unit of storage is an 
atomic data item, though packaged into rows / tuples.   Getting rid 
of 1NF data (recurring groups) is the first thing you are taught 
to do.

In a list type database the basic unit of storage is a list (think 
REBOL block). That's far from being 1NF, especially as a list can 
contain other lists.

.

.

.

Ok.. that's a bit excessive

I'm looking for a good FTP Client for XP.
Any suggestions?

well, Total Commander is ok

SmartFTP

TotalCommander is not bad, but misses secure FTP connection. FileZilla 
or UltraFXP were recommended to me.

What about Reichart's FTP client?

I've found the PuTTY suite of tools good: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
Maybe PSFTP can do the job?

SmartFTP is the one I use.

Brian, what do you think about this?

match: func [block rule /local recurse result] [
    result: false
    parse block recurse: [
        some [
            rule (result: true)
            |
            into recurse
            |
            skip
        ]
    ]
    result
]

example:

qml-test: [
    qml
    [toc

        [toc-title [font opts [face "georgia"] "Table of contents"]]
        [h1 [font opts [face "georgia"] "one"]]

        [para [font opts [face "georgia"] "bla " [font opts [face "times"] 
        "bla"]]]

        [h1 [font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "two"]]]

        [para [font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "bla 
        bla"]]]
        [olist

            [oitem [font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "one"] 
            " cont"]]
            [oitem [font opts [face "georgia"] "two"] " cont"]
            [oitem "three"]
        ]
        [h1 "three"]
        [para "bla bla"]
        [h3 "four"]
        [para "bla bla"]
        [h1 "five"]
        [h2 "six"]
        [h2 "seven"]
    ]
]

>> match qml-test [x: ['h1 | 'h2 | 'h3] to end (probe x)]
[h1 [font opts [face "georgia"] "one"]]

[h1 [font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "two"]]]
[h1 "three"]
[h3 "four"]
[h1 "five"]
[h2 "six"]
[h2 "seven"]
== true

>> match qml-test [x: 'font to end (probe x)]
[font opts [face "georgia"] "Table of contents"]
[font opts [face "georgia"] "one"]

[font opts [face "georgia"] "bla " [font opts [face "times"] "bla"]]
[font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "two"]]
[font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "bla bla"]]

[font opts [face "georgia"] [font opts [face "times"] "one"] " cont"]
[font opts [face "georgia"] "two"]
== true

Interesting. It would work with my XML data structure, assuming I 
used a block for the attributes rather than a hash (something I considered 
anyway).

you can also build rewrite on top of it:

rewrite: func [block rules /local rules* rule flag mk1 mk2 prod] 
[
    if empty? rules [return block]
    rules*: make block! 16
    foreach [pattern production] rules [

        insert insert/only insert/only tail rules* pattern make paren! compose/only 
        [
            prod: compose/deep (production)
        ] '|
    ]
    remove back tail rules*
    until [
        ;probe block ask ""

        not match block [mk1: rules* mk2: (mk2: change/part mk1 prod mk2) 
        :mk2]
    ]
    block
]

or, you can collect the matched values:

collect: func [output block rule /local x] [
    match block [copy x rule (append/only output x)]
    output
]

of course parse may not be the best for every kind of structure matching. 
but it can be a good start.

I would like to review how this kind of structure matching is done 
in other functional languages with the feature. I like this version 
and would use it if it were there, but they may have solved some 
problems unforseen by us already.

well the hard thing to do with parse is longest match.

My biggest problem with your rebcode rewrite rules was generating 
temporaries. I have the same problem with rewriting parse rules - 
actually more of one because of recursion problems.

if you come up with a dialect idea, let me know; maybe it's possible 
to write a compiler to parse, or we can just implement it directly.

rewrite is very tricky done this way

Perhaps a supply of temporaries could be provided to the rewriter 
for it to use, and then it would complain if it didn't have enough.

but probably rewriting is tricky in itself.

you mean, temp local words?

I mean words defined in the calling context that can be used as temporaries 
by the resulting code without having dificulties.

do you have an example? (i don't know if we can find a general solution, 
but i'm sure each problem can be solved quite easily)

Parse has this problem in particular for its temporary variables 
- they aren't very recursion safe. You can do some hacks to make 
up for missing parse keywords using code blocks, but usually those 
need some temporaries.

i usually just tend to avoid recursion when it is not really needed, 
and i try to stay alert when i need it ;)

When parsing recursive structures, you often need recursion-safe 
local variables. I run into this when writing compilers pretty often.

i have been thinking about function! values inside parse rules; parse 
could you the function code block as a rule, but "enter" the function 
when entering the rule; so you can take advantage of the function's 
context.

you could even define parametric rules

i was also wondering if it made sense to allow return values; but 
it doesn't match the current parse at all so i'm not sure.

Parse uses a lot of temporaries for doing common tricks with code 
blocks that should really be built into parse as keywords, like REMOVE, 
REPLACE, UNLESS, USE, etc.

I've wanted parametric rules for years.

there are many subtle issues with a proposal like this though.

i wonder if it's possible to experiment with it with mezz code.

make rule! [[locals] [rules]]

Using a variant on Carl's new make function! syntax.