Fri, 20 Sep 2024 04:07:16 +0000

Looks like XML tags are the best way to structure prompts and separate sections for an #LLM. It’s the only format that all of Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI LLMs encourage.

For example:

… … … …

Anthropic Docs: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/use-xml-tags OpenAI Docs: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/prompt-engineering/strategy-write-clear-instructions Google Docs: https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/learn/prompts/structure-prompts

Alternatives are using JSON, Markdown, templating formats like Mustache/Jinja, etc.

Even Llama’s system tokens seem a little XML-like. https://github.com/meta-llama/llama3/blob/main/llama/tokenizer.py#L61-L74

Personally, I’ve been using Markdown so far. But it’s time to switch over. (Only on the prompt side. On the generation side, Markdown still seems the best.)

RSS feeds in Excel

Thu, 03 May 2007 12:00:00 +0000

The technique of Web lookups in Excel I described yesterday is very versatile. I will be running through some of the practical uses it can be put to over the next few days

TO generalise things beyond just getting the Amazon price, I created a user-defined function called XPATH. It takes two parameters:

URL of the XML feed to read
Search XPath list string (separated by spaces)

This function can be used to extract information out of any XML file on the Web and get it out as a table. For example, if you wanted to watch the Top 10 movies on the IMDb Top 250, and were looking for torrents, an RSS feed is available from mininova. The URL http://www.mininova.org/rss/movie_name/4 gives you an RSS file matching all movies with “movie_name”. From this, we need to extract the and <item><link> elements. That’s represented by “//item title link” on my search string.</p> <p><a href="https://www.s-anand.net/blog/assets/flickr-mininova-rss-feed-in-excel_482789516_o-png.webp"></a></p> <p>The formula becomes <code>XPath2( "http://www.mininova.org/rss/"&A2&"/4", "//item title link")</code>. The result is a 2-dimensional array returning individual items in rows, and the columns are title and link. Pulling it all together, you can get the sheet above.</p> <p>All of this could be done using a command-line program. Excel has one huge advantage though. It’s one of the most powerful user-interfaces. Increasingly, I’m beginning to rely on just two user interfaces for almost any task. One is the browser, and the other is Excel. With Excel, I could have a sheet that has my <a href="https://www.s-anand.net/blog/wishlist-for-movies/">movie wishlist</a> (which changes often), and add check to see if the torrent exists. Every time I add a bunch of movies to the wishlist, it’s just a matter of copying the formula down. No need to visit a torrent search engine and typing each movie in, one by one.</p> <p>Another example. Someone suggests 10 movies to watch. I’d rather watch the ones with a higher IMDb rating. Again, enter the Web lookup. Type in the movie names. Use a function like this to look up the rating on IMDb, and sort by the rating.</p> <p>The possibilities are endless.</p> <hr> <h2 id="comments">Comments</h2>  <ul> <li><strong>Isit?</strong> <em>3 May 2007 12:00 pm</em>: Is it possible to have the feeds update cumulative so the old feeds dont get replaced in excel?</li> <li><strong>Alex</strong> <em>3 May 2007 12:00 pm</em>: Hi, I have an Excel spreadsheet with URLs of move titles on IMDB, and I would like to retrieve the movie rating. I’ve read your tutorials, and this one comes closest to what I need. However I still cannot figure out what needs to be done. It looks like you have this problem solved. If so, can you possibly share your solution with me? Thank you, Alex</li> <li><strong>Kishan</strong> <em>3 May 2007 12:00 pm</em>: I came here searching for the other way round. That is to publish an RSS feed of what I have in Xcel! Thanks Anyways</li> <li><strong>venkat</strong> <em>15 Oct 2010 4:09 pm</em>: Anand Can you provide the xpath function?, I need to read a rss feed into excel, and i want only some columns of data, i would appreciate if you could send the xpath function to my email id Thanks venkat</li> <li><strong><a href="http://www.light-sensors.com">Light Sensors</a></strong> <em>2 Dec 2010 7:08 pm</em>: movie ratings really depend on how cool the movie is, i usually rate movies depending on the story line `-;</li> <li><strong>rt</strong> <em>27 Jun 2013 5:41 pm</em>: Hi, nice job ! can you share with me your xpath2 (i tried your other one without succes on amazon) ?Thanks, R</li> </ul>  </article> <article> <h1>IIMB PGP99 Birthday calendar</h1> <p>Sun, 16 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/j8rt8e5j0h8jtteqe34aabecb0@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic">IIMB PGP99 Birthday calendar</a> is online. You can add it to <a href="http://calendar.google.com/">Google Calendar</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/ical/">iCal</a> or <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/">Mozilla Calendar</a>. Here’s the <a href="http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/j8rt8e5j0h8jtteqe34aabecb0@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic">XML</a> version.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Droogle</h1> <p>Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:00:00 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://www.droogle.ca/">Droogle</a>. Drink recipes.</p> <hr> <h2 id="comments">Comments</h2>  <ul> <li><strong>Jetru</strong> <em>24 Mar 2005 5:04 pm</em>: Doesnt look like the XML feed is working…</li> <li><strong>Deshi</strong> <em>24 Mar 2005 6:17 pm</em>: This is one lousy blog!</li> <li><strong>Genmys</strong> <em>25 Mar 2005 1:49 am</em>: Lassi features as South Indian drink. Obscure results for Butter Milk</li> <li><strong>ritzkini</strong> <em>25 Mar 2005 8:13 am</em>: Bandwidth Limit Exceeded.The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.Apache/1.3.33 Server at <a href="https://www.droogle.ca">www.droogle.ca</a> Port 80(25/03/2005-at 1:45 PM IST)</li> <li><strong>Shamit</strong> <em>26 Mar 2005 4:41 am</em>: It is getting a bit cluttered …</li> <li><strong>S Anand</strong> <em>28 Mar 2005 3:20 am</em>: Yes, it is, rather. Will see what I can do about that.</li> <li><strong>S Anand</strong> <em>30 Mar 2005 7:23 am</em>: Fixed the XML feed.</li> </ul>  </article> <article> <h1>RSS feed</h1> <p>Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:00:00 +0000</p> <p>My <a href="https://www.s-anand.net/blog/sanand.xml">RSS feed</a> is back.</p> </article> </main></body></html>

xml on S Anand

RSS feeds in Excel