Re: [xsl] DFDL - Data Format Description Language?

[JBryant@xxxxxxxxx]

> I don't know anything about Extreme Markup. What's
> it like? Who goes to it? 

I've never been. Perhaps next year (seems a bit late to register for this 
year).

>Again, thank you. This may be just what I'm
> looking for. Is it widely supported? 

I can't say for certain (who knows what unpublished and unannounced 
efforts may be going forward?), but I think DFDL is just getting going. 
Given the prevalence of the problem, I expect DFDL will see wide adoptance 
if it does even a remotely decent job of addressing some common problems 
within the problem space. I'm certainly keeping an eye on it, since many 
of my potential clients have these kinds of problems.

> OH. I didn't think of that.  Of course. 

I wouldn't have thought of that very quickly, either. I got it from the 
Extreme Markup site some time ago. Wiseacre that I am, though, I couldn't 
resist springing it on you.

Since XSLT 2.0 includes regular expression facilities, I'm sure XSL can 
help solve some of these problems. As a case in point, I've already used 
xsl:analyze-string to extract a bunch of paragraphs marked with 
PARAGRAPH_START and PARAGRAPH_END and turn them into proper elements 
objects in my FO and HTML output. With DFDL to provide the necessary hints 
about how to handle a non-XML data source, XSLT 2.0's regular expression 
features might very well be the entire solution to some of these problems.

Jay Bryant
Bryant Communication Services
(presently consulting at Synergistic Solution Technologies)






Dennis Barb <dennisxmlwork@xxxxxxxxx> 
06/27/2005 03:56 PM
Please respond to
xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


To
xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc

Subject
Re: [xsl] DFDL - Data Format Description Language?






At 1:26 PM -0500 6/27/05, JBryant@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>Try http://forge.gridforum.org/projects/dfdl-wg/

Thank you, that reallly helps. 
>
>Mulberry is offering a tutorial on it at the 2005
Extreme Markup Languages 
>conference.

I don't know anything about Extreme Markup. What's it
like? Who goes to it? 

>
>It's basically a way to try to deal with legacy
(non-XML) data in such a 
>way that XML-based systems can make sense of it. To
do that, separate 
>files in the DFDL format describe the legacy content.
Put differently, 
>it's a way to add metadata about legacy data that
XML-based systems can 
>use to interact with the legacy data. If you have a
mix of XML and non-XML 
>data, it makes sense, yes.

Again, thank you. This may be just what I'm looking
for. Is it widely supported? 

>
>And can you say Daffodil? :D

OH. I didn't think of that.  Of course. 

Thank you again. 
-Dennis


 
____________________________________________________ 
Yahoo! Sports 
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football 
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com