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RE: Evaluate a string to a node set?
- To: "Hitchman, Andrew" <Andrew dot Hitchman at compuware dot com>
- Subject: RE: Evaluate a string to a node set?
- From: Jeni Tennison <jeni at friday dot u-net dot com>
- Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 18:43:39 +0100
- Cc: xsl-list at mulberrytech dot com
- Reply-To: xsl-list at mulberrytech dot com
Andy,
>I've already tried this approach, but enclosing the presentation HTML within
>the XSL stylesheet (or even including it as a template) causes problems with
>HTML editors (Dreamweaver2 blows-up).
I think that Chris was trying to get at using the 'simplified syntax' for
stylesheets with only a single template for the root node. If your HTML
editors were to produce a file like:
---- team.html ----
<html xsl:version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/strict">
<head>
<title>View Team <xsl:value-of select="/team/name"/></title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Team <xsl:value-of select="/team/name"/></h1>
<xsl:value-of select="/team/notes"/>
<h2>Schumacher</h2>
<p>DOB: <xsl:value-of
select="/team/driver[name='Schumacher']/date-of-birth" /></p>
</body>
</html>
----
Then using team.html *as the stylesheet* with team.xml as the source produces:
---- out.html ----
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/strict">
<head>
<title>View Team Ferrari</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Team Ferrari</h1>
Bla-bla-bla...
<h2>Schumacher</h2>
<p>DOB: 1969-01-03</p>
</body>
</html>
----
Maybe this is what you've already tried; if so, what is it that
Dreamweaver2 blows up on?
Another solution is to preprocess the HTML files that your HTML designers
are generating into XSLT stylesheets that you can then use on your XML data
to get the final HTML document. A preprocessing stylesheet would look
something like:
---- preprocess.xsl ----
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:oxsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/TransformAlias"
xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/strict"
exclude-result-prefixes="html">
<xsl:namespace-alias stylesheet-prefix="oxsl" result-prefix="xsl"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<oxsl:stylesheet version="1.0">
<oxsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates />
</oxsl:template>
</oxsl:stylesheet>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:copy-of select="@*" />
<xsl:apply-templates />
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="html:xdata">
<oxsl:value-of select="{@select}" />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
----
This has the advantage that you don't have to train the HTML designers to
insert xsl:value-of elements and all the namespace and version information
that you do if you're using their work directly as a stylesheet, and that
you don't have to change the HTML templates they've already generated.
An additional advantage of this technique is that you could alter the
xdata-matching template slightly to *apply templates* rather than include
the value:
<xsl:template match="html:xdata">
<oxsl:value-of select="{@select}" />
</xsl:template>
and then include other stylesheets that know how to format specific pieces
of your data in specific ways by adding an oxsl:include in the generated
stylesheet:
<xsl:template match="/">
<oxsl:stylesheet version="1.0">
<oxsl:include href="formatting.xsl" />
<oxsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates />
</oxsl:template>
</oxsl:stylesheet>
</xsl:template>
The downside, of course, is that preprocessing is a pain.
>Moreover it doesn't fit with my overall strategy of separating presentation,
>data and the logic which combines them.
>
>One of my goals is the ability to present the same XML with the same
>stylesheet in different HTML pages (i.e. different layout, same data). The
>idea is to create HTML fragments from the XML to slice into a master HTML
>document.
I've always thought of the source document as the data, the stylesheet as
the presentation, and the logic that combines them being that which is
documented in the XSLT Recommendation and implemented in the XSLT
Processor. XSLT templates are all about generating HTML fragments from XML
to place into a HTML document. Perhaps you can explain exactly what extra
functionality you're aiming for?
I hope this helps, anyway,
Jeni
Dr Jeni Tennison
Epistemics Ltd * Strelley Hall * Nottingham * NG8 6PE
tel: 0115 906 1301 * fax: 0115 906 1304 * email: jeni.tennison@epistemics.co.uk
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