RE: [xsl] XSLT, Web applications, and "native XML databases"

["Houghton,Andrew" <houghtoa@xxxxxxxx>]

> From: Dave Pawson [mailto:davep@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:17 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT, Web applications, and "native XML databases"
>
> Andrew Welch wrote:
> >  Once XSLT can work directly directly against
> > the database, XQuery's days could be numbered.
>
> Bit sweeping Andrew, but it always appeared as
> a fairly natural extension to XSLT, to have
> it operate on databases rather than files, to keep the dataheads
> happy and answer the users who want to play
> with dirty great datasets.
>    I'm surprised it's not on the agenda for the WG

If you really want XSLT to work directly against the database
you could use collection() to return the documents.  In Saxon,
for example, you would have to write a CollectionURIResolver.
I don't fully understand XMLDB, but it seems you could create
an XMLDB CollectionURIResolver in Saxon and could access any
XMLDB compatible database today.  Or write a specialized
CollectionURIResolver to any existing database you needed to
access.

Andy.