Question

Please consider using XML for saving configuration Data from any device or Sofware.

You can simply use some free XML Library for that which are available under BSD or LGPL Licenses. They will make your live much easier and nearly completely take away tasks like validating, transforming or merging configuration files from you so you can focus on your real work.

Additionally, that would open the way for many useful things:

• Integration of new Features in Configurations: just extend your XSD for that and fill the Data in ne nodes no more bothering with file formats, field sizes, binary representations of data an so on. Thats all handled by libxml or whatever you use for that
   
• validating possibly corrupted configuration files (from broken memory cards or external tools): just use a standard XML validator and maybe a XSD for that. 5 Lines of Code and you can do that even within the Mixer when loading files - much better than just freezing or getting undefined behaviour like some Mixers do today when reading corrupt config files.
   
• If a customer has a Problem with its Mixer, you can ask him to send his XML Configuration to you and you first can validate that using your XSD so you see if there is corruption on that. Even if the customer made that Configuration its own way, you can have a clear Definition of the failure side: if it is validating, your Mixer "has to eat it", if it is not validating your customer has to fix the file. No need for Discussion on that any more.
   
• Porting whole Configurations or Scenes from one Mixer to another would just be a XSLT Transformation, even if the devices do not have matching features it would be possible to set reasonable defaults or workarounds that way. That would even work with MIxers from other manufacturers if they also use XML for that purpose.
   
• One could also write XSLT Templates to, for example,  "split up" a whole 64S Configuration to 4 pieces of 16R Rackmixers connected via AVB - for example, to turn your stage Boxes into a breakdown Fallback within seconds for the case someone accidentally empties his Beer on your FoH Console. Making such XSLT is just a Job of a handful hours if someone knows what he is doing.
   
• Merging FX  preset Collections to libraries: could be done using xslt and xinclude, simply first extract all FX Presets from one Scene and then include them into another via xinclude mechanism and finally generate a new Configuration via XSLT from that.
   
• writing scene Editors could be done by any 3rd party, you would open up a Market where i am shure we would see some decent things within a short period of time. Anyone could use Your XSD to validate its files and so no Discussions about "wrong data" can happen anymore. Either the file validates or it doesn't.
   
• You could even generate a Service to offer Session Template and Preset Collections  for all your Mixers by having some generic XML Definitions and applying one XSLT Transformation for each mixer model on that to generate the specific configuration file.

Answer 1

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