Re: Formatting elements

[lachance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Francois Lachance)]

Design pattern in the XSLT and best practices in the XML...

Dave's picking up of Jeni's thread deserves some further spin (weave?)

wrappers
- if they exist in the XML proceed as per DaveP below
- if they do not exist consider two transformations piped to insert
wrappers

if wrappers do not exist but IDs do
- process with template match
- if IDs do not exist consider generate(id) and then template match or
keys

if both wrappers and IDs exist...

if neither wrappers nor IDs exist...

In short, good XML markup uses both elements and attributes to create as
much specificity in the nodes as possible. Good XSLT can transform XML to
achieve greater degrees of specificity in the markup or can use XML marked
up with an adequate degree of specificity to extract information.

It does seem almost counter-intuitive to be adding something in order to
speed up the extraction. The metaphor of a catalyst might make it seem
more intuitive. Don't know if the "add in order to subtract" principle
could make sense of axis and node navigation....


> Often one additional wrapper in the source XML makes all the difference
> in the world to the ease of processing via XSLT.
>  To be able to sit (sorry, template match) on the wrapper, and play
> with the children (??) of that wrapper is a piece of cake compared
> to matching on one of many, and chasing along the axis to do something.
> 
> There's a design pattern here... somewhere.
> 
> DaveP
>  
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


-- 
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
	 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
Member of the Evelyn Letters Project
	http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~dchamber/evelyn/evtoc.htm


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list