RE: XSL equivalent sought.

["Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Out of my cavern for a moment. If you didn't heard of me in the recent times
it is because I am busy writing chapters for XML Pro book to be published by
Wrox Publishers.

However, I followed with interest this thread and looked at it from an Occam
point of view and considered the economy of the XPath expression compared to
the actual dsssl expression. XPath is a string based language used to access
DOM or, in the DSSSL context, GROVEs.

XPath expression:
select="/frontmatter/date"/>

DSSSL1 expression: (example 1)
	(process-node-list (select-elements
                             (descendants (current-root))
                             '(FRONTMATTER DATE)))
DSSSL1 expression: (example 2)
(sgml-root-element) or something similar, defined as:

(define (sgml-root-element #!optional (grove-node (current-node)))
  (node-property 'document-element (node-property 'grove-root grove-node)))
In this case the equivalent of an absolute positioning to the root expressed
by XPath by "/".

String based expressions are also used for directory services like for
instance LDAP. As probably some of you already know, a directory service is
a kind of GROVE (i.e. a hierarchical structure where each node has a set of
properties). An other kind of string based expression is the classical DNS
(an other kind of directory service) where here too, we have a potential
GROVE where each node in the hierarchy possess a set of properties.

Thus, as a simple inference, string based expressions used to access groves
have the potential to be very scalable from the macro (directory services)
to the micro (document elements).

So just for a moment, imagine what this would imply to have an expression
such as:

(query (path: "http://www.iso.org/frontmatter/date";)
	(put action here)
)

or

(query (path:
"ldap://ldap.itd.umich.edu/doc=testdoc/o=iso/c=us/frontmatter/date";)
	(put action here)
)

End of recreation. Let's remove my GROVE 3D glasses and let's go back to
work. I have the DSSSL2 scope of work to work on too.

Enjoy
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com


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