Re: writing entity references.

Subject: Re: writing entity references.
From: Paul Prescod <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 15:55:54 -0600
dcl@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> I succeeded in writing an entity reference, "&ImaginaryI;" to the result
> tree by defining the entity in a DTD for the stylesheet.  I'm not sure the
> spec' nails-down this behaviour.  Could it?  I'm using the LotusXSL
> implementation.

That strikes me as a bug. The entity reference in the stylesheet should be
expanded and have absolutely *no relation* with an entity of the same name
in the *output*. Let me try this one more time:

>>>>

Internal text XML entities are not logical objects in the same way that
characters and elements are. They are text substitution hacks. Once the
text substitution is complete, the entities go away. XSL does not provide
a mechanism for generating them in the output, because they are text
substitition hacks and you could just as easily generate the *value* of
the substitution instead of the substitution name. Maybe some future
version of XSL will support this despite its dubious usefulness --
comments are now supported and those are also not logical objects.

<<<<

And while I'm at it:

>>>>

XSL does not allow you to create unadorned "<" and "&" symbols in
character data context because XSL is an XML to XML transformation
mechanism. It is not possible to have unadorned "<" and "&" symbols in XML
so XSL does not support it.

<<<<

 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"You have the wrong number."
"Eh? Isn't that the Odeon?"
"No, this is the Great Theater of Life. Admission is free, but the 
taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The 
show is continuous. Good-night." -- Robertson Davies, "The Cunning Man"


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