Re: [xsl] stylesheet expansion

["Andrew Welch" <andrew.j.welch@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/12/2007, Colin Adams <colinpauladams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > As Colin has said, compiled stylesheets seem to be the only way, but
> > may be not what the OP was after.
>
> Did I really say ONLY? Well, whether or not I said it, I am going to
> disagree with myself, and Andrew, on this.

Ok, I'll take all the credit for it then... :)


> Since a better way is to use OASIS XML catalogs. It is more portable
> than compiled transformations (not completely portable, of course -
> some processors won't support them).

That's not a better way for me.

> > Ideally importable compiled "stylesheet modules" will be invented soon....   :)
>
> It may be ideal for you, but it won't solve the OP's problem at all.
> He will be in exactly the same situation as now.

The OP said:

"I have a stylesheet with a pipeline in it
and a large set of imported stylesheets...

I would like to deliver one expanded stylesheet."

So the requirement is to be able to combine multiple stylesheets into
a single deliverable...which "compiled stylesheet modules" would fit
perfectly.

The only difference I can see is that the module might not be human
readable - which is a bonus in some cases... (but you never know it
may be possible to uncompile the module).

Dimitre was after this sort of ability for FXSL a while back...  I was
after it too for a project where 2500+ lines of XSLT could've been
compiled, except that they were imported by a stylesheet comtaining a
couple of templates that was generated on the fly per transform.
Prior to that particular requirement I used a compiled stylesheet, but
afterwards I had to create a new Transformer everytime...

I really think distributing a file with paths to all the stylesheets
is a poor second to distributing a single binary.

As a middle road perhaps we could borrow from java and create .xar
files (um.. "zarr"?) with manifests that indicate the primary
stylesheet?

-- 
Andrew Welch
http://andrewjwelch.com
Kernow: http://kernowforsaxon.sf.net/