These are running notes as I study how OLX is generated and parsed. Eventually, I want to clean this up and turn it into an official OLX Specification.

Existing docs

• 4. OLX Course Structure — EdX Open Learning XML Guide - Alpha Version documentation

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Relevant code

openedx/XBlock

• xblock.core:Blocklike.parse_xml (core deserialization)

  • args

    • node: xml node

    • runtime: xblock runtime

    • keys: scopeids for new block, including usage id

  • notes

    • starts by constructing a new xblock instance from the class

      • keys are the only arg

    • child nodes become child blocks, or fields, if they belong to the right namespace

    • …

• xblock.core:Blocklike.add_xml_to_node (core serialization)

openedx/edx-platform

• xmodule.xml_block:XmlMixin:parse_xml (builtin-block deserialization)

• xmodule.xml_block.XmlMixin.add_xml_to_node (builtin-block serialization)