How I'm Saving And Loading Project Data Without Tables... Good Idea?

[Pizza Pro 11]

Hi guys,

 

I just wanted to share how I'm saving and loading project data without using tables. I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. There might be a better way. But I found this easy for me, because it's easy to read the information visually, and I don't really like using tables.

 

Specifying location by column, row is a bit hard for me to visualize when using tables. I like how Python uses dictionaries which ties elements to keys instead, so I think this concept is similar.

 

Perhaps someone here might find this useful. Or perhaps you could give me some tips on doing it better...

 

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Saving Data

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When saving data, I save it as an HTML file. And I save it in a format that's easily readable. Something like this:

 

<p><b>Date:<b> August 32nd, 2012</p>

 

<p><b>Variable 2:<b> This is the variable</p>

 

etc.

 

 

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Loading Data

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When loading data, I use regular expressions to grab all the necessary variables by specifying the item they're next to. 

 

For example, if I wanted to load the variable 'Date', I select and open up the HTML file.

 

And then I set the variable 'the_date' to a 'find regular expression' using something like this to grab the date:

 

(?<=<p><b>Date:</b> ).*?(?=</p>)

 

And voila!

 

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Well, like I said, I'm not so sure if this is a good idea or not. But that's how I'm doing it at the moment. Mainly because I like the way the data is represented. What do you think?

 

 

[dankass 52]

Why not... if you are that comfortable with regex I dont see why this is not a good idea... I personally use a database most of the time, but for settings files and such I often use an XML file and the xml plugin from aymen.  But, I hate regex so, I avoid it like the plague:)

[Pizza Pro 11]

Why not... if you are that comfortable with regex I dont see why this is not a good idea... I personally use a database most of the time, but for settings files and such I often use an XML file and the xml plugin from aymen.  But, I hate regex so, I avoid it like the plague:)

 

Ok. Well, I wasn't sure if there were any speed or memory issues doing it like this.... but I guess it should be ok then.

 

I see. I have no idea how to use a database. Will learn it soon. Just had a look at the XML plugin. Looks pretty cool!

 

Regex is a bit tricky, but it's really fun and easy to use once you get the hang of it.