An XSL SAX?

Subject: An XSL SAX?
From: Andy Dent <dent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:00:47 +0800
I'm still struggling to come to terms with a more general model of XSL
engines, given our context which is recording reports in XML and rendering
them to a variety of media (Mac or Win GUI, RTF & HTML 3.0).

So much of what's written assumes an XSL engine that generates either HTML
or XML, but anyway some textual form. (Which led a friend to say recently
that XSL is used solely to generate HTML!)

Given a couple of months away from the problem, it seems to me that what's
needed (by us at least) is an equivalent of SAX.

ie: I need an event stream that says something like (ignore the syntax,
this is conceptual only):
start document
start font centred Helvetica Bold 18
text 'Andy Example'
end font
start table 4 cols
...

IOW a sequence of events for which I provide callbacks, rather than just
generating a lump of plain text.

My single biggest problem is that we can't use Java - this has to be C or
C++ for embedding in a shrinkwrap application. (Yes I know about expat and
we're already using it for parsing pure XML.) Maybe a Java->C++ conversion
is the way to go.

Am I completely off-base here, or is this seen as the way to go to provide
more general rendering of XSL other than by web browsers?
Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia
OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows
PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability
http://www.highway1.com.au/adsoftware/crossplatform.html
In SF for Macworld Jan 1st-9th 1999, at the AppMaker stand in DevDepot


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