[GSoC] Machine readable output from userland utilities

[Zaro Korchev]

I'm working on the project "Machine readable output from userland utilities" and I want to share my ideas and thoughts.

Here is the wiki page of the project:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCode2014/MachineReadableFromUserlandUtils

I'm planning to create a unified output abstraction in the form of a library. The tools supporting the machine-readable output feature will write output exclusively using the library. The exact output format will be customizable. Several backend libraries (like libucl and libnv) can be used to implement different formats.
Such library can either be compiled statically into each application or linked dynamically (depending on space/performance/versioning and other considerations).
Each tool will have to be modified to support the new output mechanism. These modifications could trivially be turned on and off using a macro switch.
One issue that must be considered is how to manage long outputs since it may not be possible to store all data in memory. This would happen rarely but can still be a problem. Probably the easiest way to solve this is to add streamed dumping capability into the underlying libraries.

Do you have any suggestions or ideas?


Thank you,
Zaro