Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Go-back is possible?

[Marcus Müller]

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While I totally see that it's convenient to have the XML source in the
generated file, I'd still say it's a bad idea to encourage people to
use that feature.

For example:
User Alice has composed a flowgraph in GRC and has modified the python
source code, actually implementing something. In former times, Alice
would obviously distribute the python code separately from the GRC
file; thus, no one wonders why the re-synthesized python code doesn't
do anything useful.
After the proposed embedding mechanism has been well established, Bob
expects that the Python file is _equivalent_ to the GRC file (which it
isn't). He tries to re-synthesize and run the Python file, which
doesn't do anything useful. This leads to confusion on Bob's side.

I think it'd be a nice idea to have a bundle file type (which would
then take the shape of a python file containing the xml as a string),
but not make it available as default. There is a factual difference
between a GRC file and a GNU Radio application, and I don't think we
do our users a favour if we blur this line.

I think what this whole agreement that it'd be nice to have the GRC
bundled with the python code stems from the fact that there are might
be a lot of python files out there generated by GRC but the .grc files
are not available to the public. (Which -- from my perspective -- is
not too true; there are a lot of obsolete GRC files out there that
hardly tell you what they did before block naming changed. The
proposed scheme doesn't solve that.)

This is more of a community / communication / platform problem than a
GRC issue.

Greetings,
Marcus

On 03.12.2013 14:25, Raydel Abreu (CM2ESP) wrote:
> That will easy a lot the problem in the future. It seems
> interesting and I guess it won't be too hard to implement!
> 
> Raydel
> 
> 
> 2013/12/2 Dan CaJacob <address@hidden>
> 
>> I have an interesting (to me anyway) idea:
>> 
>> What if we added a default option to the GRC-XML-to-python
>> converter to add the contents of the original GRC file as a big,
>> delineated comment blob.  Then, a simple tool could pull the GRC
>> back out of the python file anytime and you could go back and
>> forth.  An option when building would disable the verbose output
>> for those publishing code or who just don't want the extra
>> cruft.
>> 
>> It's a little lame, but it solves the problem.  I know I've had
>> to hand-craft many old GRCs from python files when the original
>> GRC was lost or the originator was other than myself.  The
>> problem has often crept up with GRCs not properly updated for new
>> versions of code, where the blocks go missing in the GRC
>> representation (I think there was talk of fixing this - graying
>> them out or something).
>> 
>> Very Respectfully,
>> 
>> Dan CaJacob
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Marcus Leech <address@hidden>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Think of the Python that gets emitted by GRC as object code.
>>> What you're asking is to convert said object code back into
>>> reasonable source code.
>>> 
>>> Such things exist for *actual* machine object-code, but, they
>>> produce damned-ugly results.
>>> 
>>> on Dec 02, 2013, *Raydel Abreu (CM2ESP)* <address@hidden>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Oh, that's bad, I guess I should use instead the old
>>> code-reading method....
>>> 
>>> Raydel
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2013/12/2 Marcus Leech <address@hidden>
>>> 
>>>> There's no automatic mechanism for doing that.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> on Dec 02, 2013, *Raydel Abreu (CM2ESP)* <address@hidden>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hello,
>>>> 
>>>> Is it possible to go back and convert a Python GNU Radio code
>>>> back into the GRC Flow Graph from which it was generated?
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> Raydel, CM2ESP
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
> 
> 
> 
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