I have written a console application in Delphi that queries information from several locations. This application will be launched by another process, and the output to STDOUT will be captured by the launching process.
The information I am retrieving is to be interpreted by the calling application for reporting purposes. What is the best way to output this data to STDOUT so that it can be easily parsed? JSON? XML? CSV? The data, specifically, is remote workstation information, so it will pull things back like running processes, and details about each process.
Does anyone have any experience with this or suggestions?
If you want something that can be easily parsed, especially if it has to be done quickly, go with the simplest format that can effectively communicate the information you need. CSV if you can, otherwise try JSON. Definitely not XML unless you really, really need all the extra complexity for some reason.