Re: `High-level' format specifications with XSL?

[Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> Chris Maden <crism@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

  > I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of XSL.  An XML
  > document is like the LaTeX document, with the semantic labeling;
  > the XSL stylesheet is like the LaTeX class file.  Just as LaTeX
  > may say that a \section{} gets 14-point Computer Modern bold with
  > a hierarchal number, XSL might say that "sect1/title" gets
  > 14-point Garamond book italic.  XSL is exactly where the detailed
  > formatting instructions go.  As with CSS, there is a mechanism for
  > cascading the styles, so the user can override or augment your
  > formatting choices, but XSL is precisely where this information
  > belongs.

Hm.  Maybe what I really want is the following:

The input is an XML document which is semantically marked up according
to the application, it's got elements like PROJECTTITLE and STARTDATE
and CONTACT and LOGO and so on.  The ultimate output should be some
representation of that information on the user's screen.  But there
should be some intermediate step where I can define the structure of
the document that contains all the information from the
application-specific markup.  When going from the input to the
intermediate step, I would specify which things are in section
headings, which things are in unnumbered lists, which are in
enumerations, which things in tables, the like.  And when going from
the intermediate stage to the output, I want to specify how a section
heading should look, how an unnumbered list should be formatted, and
so on.

Is there a way to split processing an XML document into two stages,
like this?

kai
-- 
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