I would like to suggest that MediaPortal should start using XBMC's XML scrapers for HTTP media information scraping.
XBMC today has a very nice generic API for letting anyone create and/or maintain XML and Perl Compatible Regular Expression (PCRE RegExp) based parsing scrapers without prior programming knowledge, scrapers that scrape HTTP websites for metadata (sites such as IMDb.com, TheTVDB.com, TV.com, AllMusic.com, and many more), metadata for Movies, TV-Shows, Music-Videos, and Music, and XBMC scrapers parse that metadata before entering it into the database library. I think that it would be great if MediaPortal could integrate that same parser API so that it could use XBMC scraper XML files as is, and vice versa, so cross-compatible with both applications, (later even other open source media center, such as maybe MeediOS, will catch on so that they could all share this library/interface and use the same RegEx XML scraper files).
This scraper API should in theory only require that you first integrate basic XML parser and PCRE RegEx parser into MediaPortal (which I assume already exist and if so only a hook should be needed), and then you will have to convert XBMC's ScraperParser.cpp from C++ to C# code in order for MediaPortal to use it nativly.
You can download the XBMC source code from the SVN, instructions can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc
The existing scapers can be found in the SVN under "/branches/linuxport/XBMC/system/scrapers/"
(Please note that IMDb.xml is the best scraper of these to use as a reference).
Find the C++ source code for XBMC parser in "/branches/linuxport/XBMC/xbmc/utils/ScraperParser.cpp"
If you do not have a SVN tool then download vi the web-interface here:
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/system/scrapers/video
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/system/scrapers/music
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/xbmc/utils/ScraperParser.cpp
More about the scraper function can be found in the XBMC wiki:
Category of wiki articles tagged as "Scraper" related
Scraper.xml structure
How To Write Media Info Scrapers for XBMC
Scrap (Scrap.exe for testing of scrapers under Windows)
How To use Scrapers
TV Shows handling in XBMC
Music Videos handling in XBMC
What do you Team-MediaPortal developers think about this idea?
PS! For those unfamiliar with XBMC you will find good overview in the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC
XBMC today has a very nice generic API for letting anyone create and/or maintain XML and Perl Compatible Regular Expression (PCRE RegExp) based parsing scrapers without prior programming knowledge, scrapers that scrape HTTP websites for metadata (sites such as IMDb.com, TheTVDB.com, TV.com, AllMusic.com, and many more), metadata for Movies, TV-Shows, Music-Videos, and Music, and XBMC scrapers parse that metadata before entering it into the database library. I think that it would be great if MediaPortal could integrate that same parser API so that it could use XBMC scraper XML files as is, and vice versa, so cross-compatible with both applications, (later even other open source media center, such as maybe MeediOS, will catch on so that they could all share this library/interface and use the same RegEx XML scraper files).
This scraper API should in theory only require that you first integrate basic XML parser and PCRE RegEx parser into MediaPortal (which I assume already exist and if so only a hook should be needed), and then you will have to convert XBMC's ScraperParser.cpp from C++ to C# code in order for MediaPortal to use it nativly.
You can download the XBMC source code from the SVN, instructions can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc
The existing scapers can be found in the SVN under "/branches/linuxport/XBMC/system/scrapers/"
(Please note that IMDb.xml is the best scraper of these to use as a reference).
Find the C++ source code for XBMC parser in "/branches/linuxport/XBMC/xbmc/utils/ScraperParser.cpp"
If you do not have a SVN tool then download vi the web-interface here:
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/system/scrapers/video
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/system/scrapers/music
SourceForge.net XBMC SVN Repository - /trunk/XBMC/xbmc/utils/ScraperParser.cpp
More about the scraper function can be found in the XBMC wiki:
Category of wiki articles tagged as "Scraper" related
Scraper.xml structure
How To Write Media Info Scrapers for XBMC
Scrap (Scrap.exe for testing of scrapers under Windows)
How To use Scrapers
TV Shows handling in XBMC
Music Videos handling in XBMC
What do you Team-MediaPortal developers think about this idea?
PS! For those unfamiliar with XBMC you will find good overview in the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC