'Pipe' export feature (was: Re: Bug #86375 can be closed...)

[Andrew Ferrier <andrew junk new-destiny co uk>]

On 2002-07-16 at 12:11 -0700, Tim Ellis wrote:

> > Maybe I'm missing the point, but what stops you doing:
> >
> > export in dia to diagram.dia, say.
> >
> > cat diagram.dia | grep attribute | sed -e 's/ABC/DEF/' > munged.txt
> >
> > Does that not do the same thing? Do you really think this
> > feature would be oft-used? (not a complaint just surprised!)
>
> Here's my situation. I've created a Perl script that converts
> Dia UML diagrams into SQL DDL for some database. I'd like for
> a DBA to just do an export-as to get a SQL DDL file in the
> end.
>
> Thus, save the diagram to "tedia2sql --stdin -t oracle >
> DDL.sql" and they get a beautiful DDL.sql file straight from
> Dia.
>
> Of course, the sophisticated user (me & you, apparently) can
> just save the file and run a script from the commandline.
>
> I know, for example, there is a script out there somewhere
> that generates C++ code based on UML diagrams, and I bet the
> folks that do that would be interested in this feature as
> well.

Right, I see where you're coming from with this. This makes
quite a bit of sense actually if you've got those tools. The
way I would envisage this working is:

Dia would have a configuration directory (something like
/usr/share/dia/exportpipes.d). When programs such as tedia2sql
got installed, they would install a configuration file in this
directory which would specify what pipes, scripts etc. dia
needed to use in order to transform the file from it's native
.dia to (to use the example above) .sql. Each of these files
would then appear as another export filter in Dia's export
types list.

What do others think of this idea? If it sounds promising,
could I suggest that you file it as a wishlist/enhancement bug
in the dia bugtracker, Tim? Not sure I'd like to do this, but
if it's a good idea, it's worth keeping track of...

Regards,
Andrew.

-- 
Andrew Ferrier

email: andrew.junk@new-destiny.co.uk
web:   http://www.new-destiny.co.uk/andrew/