Re: [xsl] Testing file existence

Subject: Re: [xsl] Testing file existence
From: Steve Ball <Steve.Ball@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 09:15:53 +1000
Eduardo Andrés Alfonso Sierra wrote:
I wanna include some images in the html file generated from a xml file using
a stylesheet but I want to do that only if these images exists.

How can I test if a file (no xml) exists on my misk.

I'm using the XT processor.

For the benefit of those not using XT, there are at least two ways so solve this:

1. Use an extension function.  Most XSLT processors provide
a means of defining extensions.  Personally, I use libxslt
and have a wrapper for it for the Tcl scripting language.
To test file existence (or get a file mod time, etc)
I call out to a Tcl script via an extension function.

2. There may be other ways depending on the framework you
have set up.  For example, if you are running a web server
then you could set up a CGI(-like) URL that returns the
file existence information as a small XML document.
Then use the document() function to retrieve that info.
This is essentially a Web Service.  It would be nice to be
able to use SOAP for this purpose, but SOAP doesn't
play nicely with XSLT :-(

It goes without saying that security issues must be
considered...

2.5 Pass filesystem information to the stylesheet as
a parameter.  You could have some code create a listing
of the filesystem (most probably the sub-hierarchy you're
interested in, rather than the entire tree), pop that
in a file, pass the filename to the stylesheet as a
parameter and then use document() to pull in that file.

Just some ideas...
Steve Ball

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