Any recommendations on development software?

[Ed Shaya]

Stephen,

Stephen Lowe wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I was wondering if anyone has recommendations on development software
>for working with VOTables, XML Schema or FITS files. Particular areas
>we're interested in here are:
>
>XML Binders --- the Caltech group used Breeze to create and distribute a
>Java class hierarchy (JAVOT) for manipulating VOTable data, reading and
>creating VOTable files. Are there features that recommend Breeze over
>alternatives, such as Sun's JAXB?
>  
>
As far as an automated way to go from XML to Java or C++ code, we have 
found that
you can only get a small headstart from these code writers, and 
sometimes they head you
in the wrong direction.  For extremely simple XML
you might get something useful and maybe VOTable is simple enough.  But 
for a real
data model (eg., the one Jonathan et al are developing),  it is unlikely 
that you can autogenerate useful
code either from XML or UML.  A few years from now, if MDA catches on 
maybe this will change.

As far as distribution, SUN's Open source JAXB is very easy to use. An 
xml file is stored
as a long string in an Oracle blob <--> java bean object <--> JSP pages.

>Are any of the participants working with a C++ binder and class library?
>
>FITS file libraries --- we're trying the Java package nom.tam.fits. Any
>other suggestions?
>  
>

Tom McGlynn's (tam) package appears to be very nice. We used it in our FITSML effort
(FITSML extends XDF) to create FITS to FITSML conversion. And it was quite straightforward
to couple JFITSIO with jXDF, so I imagine the same would be true with JAVOT.
There is also another Java FITSIO package by Ed Pier of GSFC/RITSS
at http://adfwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/swift/java_fits.tar.gz.
This package has its features, such as treating FITS BINTABLE as a Swing
JTable model. So once a file is read, the table data can be easily
displayed in a JTable.


>Thanks for any advice,
>Steve
>  
>
Ed & Shenping Huang

>  
>