[tor-bugs] #6171 [Stem]: Export Tor descriptors with Csv, Xml, Json: tor2csv, Tor2xml, tor2json

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#6171: Export Tor descriptors with Csv, Xml, Json: tor2csv, Tor2xml, tor2json
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 Reporter:  naif         |          Owner:  atagar
     Type:  enhancement  |         Status:  new   
 Priority:  normal       |      Milestone:        
Component:  Stem         |        Version:        
 Keywords:               |         Parent:        
   Points:               |   Actualpoints:        
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 This ticket to add to Stem a functionality to Stem (as set of small sample
 applications) that export the tor descriptors in various useful formats:
 - csv
 - xml
 - json

 A similar attempt for csv has been done on
 https://github.com/mrlanrat/TorExport

 A post to tor-dev mlist about it is at
 https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2012-June/003633.html

 A chat discussion is at:

 naif
 atagar: for example the TorExport tried to do that goal (by torservers)
 https://github.com/mrlanrat/TorExport but it's not working properly
 atagar
 naif: Hm, so you're thinking that the use case is 'write a python app to
 parse and do something with the descriptors (say, filter), then export the
 results to a csv'? I could see use in that, though how should we handle
 new descriptor additions? Add another positional field that might not be
 expected by callers?
 4:16
 rransom
 atagar: SQL! After all, it works *soooo* nicely for every Tor Python
 program that uses it.
 4:17
 naif
 atagar: you made the right definition of what i mean
 atagar: a set of python app that use stem to do conversion to csv, json,
 xml for content of tor descriptors
 naif
 atagar: i mean, i am a sysadmin, not a coder, so for me having something
 that i can easily sed/awk and/or load with simple CSV library it's
 *extremely* useful
 atagar
 naif: Sounds good. I'd be happy to add a 'get_csv()' method to decriptor
 classes and have a little converter like TorExport. However, I'm still not
 sure what you would like to have happen when there are descriptor
 additions.
 4:20
 atagar
 Add the new fields to the end of the csv or something else?
 4:20

 naif
 atagar: it make sense
 atagar: tipically within CSV files the 1st line it's used to describe
 various fields
 atagar: we may have as a convention that the 1st line always bring the
 description of the descriptor addition fields?
 4:21
 4:21
 atagar
 naif: Ahh, ok. Please file a ticket, it would be an easy task for one of
 the new people to pick up. If there's a specific pressing need for it then
 I could easily hack it out.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6171>
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