Re: [xsl] Re: : Re: AW: Article: An XSL Calculator: The Math Modules of FXSL --> ?

[Jeni Tennison <jeni at jenitennison dot com>]

Dimitre,

> In fact I was going to ask Jeni if I was wrong in pointing out the
> differences in approach and implementation between FXSL and EXSLT.

In my view, the primary role of EXSLT is to create standard
definitions for and namespaces for extension functions and elements.
EXSLT provides third-party implementations, as both user-defined
extension functions and pure XSLT 1.0 templates, of those functions
that it can as a backup, to help users create portable stylesheets,
but I don't think that EXSLT should be seen as solely or primarily a
library of these implementations.

It would be nice if it were possible for the EXSLT site to point to
different EXSLT function implementations (with those in pure XSLT 1.0
as templates, naturally) in libraries such as the FXSL library and the
XSLT Standard Library, just as it does to the different vendor
implementations in different processors. That isn't possible unless
the libraries adopt the same function and parameter names/namespaces
as specified in EXSLT, however.

With Xalan's new implementations of most of the "core" EXSLT functions
(hooray!), I'm planning to go through and update most of the EXSLT
pages soon. At the same time, I'd like to update the implementations
that are available on the EXSLT site, since many of them are
suboptimal. We haven't got any XSLT or EXSLT func:function
implementations of the trig functions at the moment, so I was going to
ask -- would it be OK to use those from the FXSL library (crediting
you, naturally)? If so, would you prefer me to copy across (or
reference) the entire FXSL calculator and write wrapper templates to
add EXSLT support, or can I just copy and adapt the 'meat' of the
calculator as separate template/function implementations?

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/


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