Re: Fw: Fw: I need < - I get &lt;

Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: I need < - I get &lt;
From: Tyler Baker <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 11:46:22 -0500
Oren Ben-Kiki wrote:

> Tyler Baker <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >They are convenient and I think that in addition to xsl:cdata,
> xsl:entity-ref
> >is a perfectly good addition to XSL that will be useful to XSL users in the
> >future.  I am surprised these two template element additions did not make
> it
> >into the last draft...
>
> The tags <xsl:cdata> and <xsl:entity-ref> are not _vital_ - as long as the
> output is going to be read by an XML processor. It boils down to the
> question of "Should an XSL stylesheet be able to emit all possible XML
> _textual representations_ or just all possible _documents_".
>
> The reason that _I_ would like to have them is that they can be argued to be
> within the current intent while allowing a clean way to emit non-XML output
> for those who need it (TeX, Rtf, ...). I'd rather that this need was
> addressed directly, but I find such tags as a reasonable compromise for the
> sake of the purity of the language.
>
> All this doesn't have anything to do with the example you've given - the
> output was valid XML.

The example had to do with using MS's xsl:cdata tags.  Even though you can argue
that xsl:cdata and xsl:entity-ref are not 100% absolutely necessary, they
certainly are convenient, especially to anyone doing XML -> HTML transformations
(which is about 99% of the real world XSL users out there).  Why should XSL
users have their needs dictated to them by a higher body.  Why not add something
in which adds no more complexity to using XSL or writing an XSL Processor,
complements XML -> XML transformations, and gets the job done for the majority
of XSL users over the next couple of years.  If xsl:cdata and xsl:entity-ref
added any significant level of complexity to XSL I would be all against it.

Tyler


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