Why Core Flow Objects

Subject: Why Core Flow Objects
From: Francois Belanger <francois@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 98 09:25:09 -0400
I'm looking at different parsers and stylesheet and see constantly the 
need for Core Flow Objects.

I'd like to understand (and could not find the answer in XSL spec) why 
such as thing is needed. I see it as a barrier to adoption more than 
anything else as one has to wait for Core Flow Object to be available and 
supported by a parser to generate different file formats from XML.

In other words, what's the difference between those two rules (the second 
probaly being faster and simpler to parse and also does not need to 
contain XML-compliant HTML):

<rule>
  <HTML>
  <HEAD>
  <TITLE>Something</TITLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY  bgcolor="#FC9A27" link="#000000" vlink="#9F0000">
    <children/>
  <IMG src="logo.gif" />
<P><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF" SIZE="2">Legal stuff.</FONT></P>
  </BODY>
  </HTML>
</rule>


<rule>
  <root/>
<![CDATA[
  <HTML>
  <HEAD>
  <TITLE>Something</TITLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY  bgcolor="#FC9A27" link="#000000" vlink="#9F0000">
]]>
    <children/>
<![CDATA[
<P><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF" SIZE="2">Legal stuff.</FONT></P>
  <IMG src="logo.gif">
  </BODY>
  </HTML>
]]>
</rule>

If the second rule is valid (I think it is), then one can create any kind 
of output using CDATA sections and do away with Core Flow Objects. 

Is this a good approach? Or is it the equivalent of the one-pixel GIF 
hack in HTML and defeats the purpose of XSL?



Francois Belanger
Sitepak, Bringing Internet Business into Focus
http://www.sitepak.com



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