Re: Style vs. transformation

[Paul Prescod <papresco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Smith, Brooke wrote:
> 
> and so why doesn't XSL allow arbitrary output (flow objects) much like
> can be done with Omnimark (of course a difference is that with SGML we
> have to output to a DTD that is used to make sure the mark-up is
> syntactically correct):
> 
> element document
>     output "<DIV>%c</DIV>"

What you are describing is not a system with "arbitrary flow object
output" but a system with a *single* flow object: "unformatted literal
string". The answer why XSL doesn't allow this is: XSL is not a report
writing system or even a conversion language. It is a stylesheet
language and there are not an infinite number of style characteristics
that we can expect browsers to support. There is finite list: font
changes, generated text, java applets and so forth.

If XSL were either a report writing language, a transformation language,
or an arbitrary text processing system then it would make sense for it
to have an "unformatted literal string" flow object. What would it mean
to a browser if you generated "<FOO>%c</FOO>"?

Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

[Woody Allen on Hollywood in "Annie Hall"]
Annie: "It's so clean down here."
Woody: "That's because they don't throw their garbage away. They make 
        it into television shows."


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