Key-value pair files to xml

This sed script will read in a key-value pairs file, you know, like this:

NAME=Joe & Freds
CLASS=Cafe

into xsl attribute lists, like this:

name="Joe & Freds" class="Cafe"

ready to be stuck in the middle of a tag.

sed -e '
/=/{ # make sure it has an = sign in
h # save current line
s/=.*/=/
y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
x # get back original line
s/^[^=]*=// # loose attribute name
/./{ # anything left?
 s/&/&/
 s/"/"/
 s/</&lt;/
 s/>/&gt;/
 s/^/"/;
 s/$/"/;
 H #append to stored line
 x # get it all back
 s/\n//
 p
}
d
}
d
'

ALSA stuttering sound

Trouble with applications playing audio stuttering badly, particularly mplayer with:

alsa-space: xrun of at least 0.068 msecs. resetting stream0.4% 10 0
alsa-space: xrun of at least 0.069 msecs. resetting stream0.4% 10 0
alsa-space: xrun of at least 0.065 msecs. resetting stream0.4% 10 0

Wonder no more, read on at the ALSA Wiki, particularly the comment by Daniel further down on why 48000 is sub-optimal in most cases.

Closed Source Kernel Drivers with B#

I commented in recently on use of B# for Linux kernel modules, a B# VM can be done in 8K or less, has a small instruction set and can implement interrupt handlers.

On reflection this is more likely to be popular under the BSD’s who don’t have so much GPL philosophy to contend with.

Hardware manufacturers could provide one set of cross-platform B# binary drivers to run under MAC-OS X and *BSD - any architecture.

Hardware drivers need to make use of a very limited part of the kernel API, the main purpose of a hardware driver is to manage resources for the hardware and implement a standard API for that piece of hardware.

The B# glue layer - somewhat like ndis-wrappers - will be the layer that copes with evolving kernel API’s. And possibly also get ported to the linux kernel - and I really don’t know if this a good thing.  Although Linus has commented against static kernel APIs to support binary modules, he has also refrained from heartily condemning suppliers of binary only kernel modules - often providing their on source-based API glue to the binary module.

While I’m a GPL fan and paying member of the FSF (not card carrying:- my bootable FSF membership card had developed some nasty blemishes making it unbootable by the time I came to need it, so I threw it away) I can see that simpler provision of hardware drivers could speed adoption of a broader selection of  hardware platforms and operating systems.

It remains to been seen to what degree adoption on the wrong terms, i.e. without free software rights, is harmful. If more open source drivers follows the borader consumer adoption, it is maybe beneficial; I’m not yet at the level of Stallman where I can say "free software or no software" - I like my nvidia drivers, although I really wish they were free.

I’m just hoping that B# drivers would require enough meta data to link to make decompilation easy, I do want my source and the ability to fix bugs.

Which might mean that B# is just a glitzy gadget and for the kernel, a bad idea after all.

XSLT Hex to Decimal Conversion

Here’s a trick I came up with to convert some XML values from hex to decimal.

I made clever (awful?) use of substring-after and substring-before and a string-based lookup table.

Very nasty, but with whats available, very neat:

  <!-- output $hexNumber as decimal, recursive so not too many digits please... -->
  <xsl:template name="HexToDecimal">
    <xsl:param name="hexNumber" />
    <xsl:param name="decimalNumber" >0</xsl:param>
    <!– If there is zero hex digits left, output –>
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="$hexNumber">
        <xsl:call-template name="HexToDecimal">
          <xsl:with-param name="decimalNumber" select="($decimalNumber*16)+number(substring-before(substring-after(’00/11/22/33/44/55/66/77/88/99/A10/B11/C12/D13/E14/F15/a10/b11/c12/d13/e14/f15/’,substring($hexNumber,1,1)),’/'))" />
          <xsl:with-param name="hexNumber" select="substring($hexNumber,2)" />
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <!– otherwise multiply, and add the next digit, and recurse –>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$decimalNumber"/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
  </xsl:template>
  <!– If it begins with 0x then parse it for sure, else return it –>
  <xsl:template name="asDecimal">
    <xsl:param name="number" />
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="substring($number,1,2)=’0x’">
        <xsl:call-template name="HexToDecimal">
          <xsl:with-param name="hexNumber" select="substring($number,3)"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$number"/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
  </xsl:template>

Invoke with
  <xsl:call-template name="HexToDecimal">
    <xsl:with-param name="hexNumber" select="@hexValueAttribute"/>
  </xsl:call-template>

Or some such

Unattributed

"He’s more deceptive than he looks"
"On the surface he’s very caring but deep down he’s a shallow person"
"Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be"

Solar Roof

See on TreeHugger.com, If you are not looking to convert your loft anytime soon, you might want to look at adding electricity-generating solar panels to your roof.

They don’t look like the ugly water-heating solar panels you may have seen from time to time, which look rather like roof-top cucumber frames; these panels could be mistaken for glitzy roof tiles.

Take a look at SolarCentury, as well as maybe getting a 50% grant towards instalation cost, you have the peace of mind of knowing that not only have you reduced your carbon footprint, you’re earning some cash helping others to do the same by selling surplus electricty to your electric company!

Bobby Robson quotes

"I wouldn’t say that we underestimated them. No. It’s just that they played far better than we expected."

"He’s very fast and if he gets a yard ahead of himself, nobody will catch him"

"My father had 5 sons, I had 4 brothers"

"They’re 2 points behind us, so we’re neck and neck"

"I’m not going to look beyond the semi-final - but I would love to lead Newcastle out at the final"

"Well, we got nine and you can’t score more than that"

"I do want to play the short ball and I do want to play the long ball. I think long and short balls is what football is all about"

"Eighteen months ago they (Sweden) were arguably one of the best three teams in Europe, and that would include Germany, Holland, Russia and anybody else if you like"

"He never fails to hit the target. But that was a miss"

"I’d say he’s the best in Europe, if you put me on the fence"

"Tottenham have impressed me: they haven’t thrown in the towel even though they have been under the gun"

"I played cricket for my local village. It was 40 overs per side, and the team that had the most runs won. It was that sort of football"

"Both teams - and Brazil even - got better on their way to the World Cup final"

"There will be a game where somebody scores more than Brazil and that might be the game that they lose"

"We don’t want our players to be monks, we want them to be football players because a monk doesn’t play football at this level."

"All right, Bellamy came on at Liverpool and did well, but everybody thinks that he’s the saviour, he’s Jesus Christ. He’s not Jesus Christ"