Export/import of roster to (XML?) file

[drraf@…]

It would be nice to have import / export function of all my contacts I have currently in roster.
It would be a "backup" file, just in case something bad happen to my jabber server or any other reason.

[nk]

nkour: hey is there a JEP for backing up the roster?
nkour: I mean a common spec of the xml file etc
ralphm: I don't think so
nkour: it's a shame
ralphm: but you could just use the query element from the result <iq/>
ralphm: (i.e. what you get when querying the roster)
nkour: is it what other do?
ralphm: I don't know of any apps backing up rosters
ralphm: but jabber:iq:roster is a proper namespace with 'query' as the root element. You can just store this in a file
ralphm: the use of 'query' as the root name is historical by the way. If we were to design it from scratch now it would probably have been something like <roster xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/roster'/>
14:12
ralphm: (or even 
ralphm: xmlns='urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-roster')

I contacted lucas in case he fills like doing a JEP

[lucas@…]

Hi,

There are at least two use cases for an import/export function : - move from one server to another - backup your profile

The problem is not really with back'ing up data, but with restoring it : the application has to re-request authorization from all the contacts in the roster, ask the other party if they are interested in re-subscribing to the user, etc.

I wrote a script which does exactly that (a migration script) a while ago. But it requires user interaction. It is available in the XMPP4R SVN repository, under data/doc/examples/advanced/migrate.rb.

I don't think a JEP is needed from import/export functions : if you really want to include this into gajim, you can just do that your on way. If the only goal is to provide a backup copy of the roster, you could dump it in a file in .gajim on each login...

[andrewdied@…]

This is similar, though not exactly like, Roster Item Exchange. http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0144.html