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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pezagent" data-source="post: 1252476" data-attributes="member: 15568">Hi Hollywood, Actually, this is why XSLT was invented, and why we have XSD. Setting anything in stone is a very bad idea. No doubt I (we all) understand the problem--application A needs data from application B, how does application A get it? The learning curve for XSL is high because it's not being explained properly, IMHO, but it's one of the most amazing things I've ever used in my experience as well as a dream come true. I wouldn't sweat the transform process--it's painless. And in some cases, totally useful to make sure there *is* a transform process. I'm trying to come up with a good example but I can't explain the goo inside my head in any easy way--the best way to summarize it all would be *mix and match*, where I can transform data A with data B, C, and D and end up with data E which can be accessed by my DAO. If there is a "common format" that is "universal" then that really defeats the purpose of XML in general. Think about it, PGGen already has a "common format" for PCGen. You can write a PHP script to parse the data written for PCGen, for example, but then you'd be locked into the PGGen way of doing things. Do you see where I'm going with this? In other words, there's no need to have a common format. Through trial and error, discussions with idiots, eggheads, professionals, geeks, and Jesus, I have discovered that as long as the XML is well-formed, an XSL file can transform it without difficulty. And that's the point. So people are free to do what they want. And when they need to exhange data, they transform it.It's really that simple.Now, regarding namespaces and reserved names--there's the kicker that nobody seems to be discussing short of andargor and myself. All of the game manufacturers have taken care of this for us--in the game rules. What the game rules need is specific to the game, so as long as the naming conventions match the game rules, there should be no problems. This isn't a very difficult project. I've already completed a lot of markup that is structured in hash-tables and lists (as it is presented to us in the first place) and can easily be transformed. I'm using XSLT now to perform lookup on these tables and lists, and the code is nothing at all. It's some of the easiest code I've ever written for an application. It makes me laugh how simple this stuff is, and how complicated everyone makes due to misunderstandings.Anyway, I'm not bashing anyone's ideas or projects, I just urge anyone undertaking these tasks to grasp the simplicity of it. Because from there, we can really start doing some totally cool sh*t with this data--and really have some fun./johnny <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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