Re: [xsl] formatting xml output: inserting newlines between generated attributes

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Abie,

At 11:17 AM 9/8/2003, you wrote:
> hello,
> I want to be able to generate an xml element using <xsl:element/attribute, 
> etc. such that the output xml file has a newline between each 
> attribute.  my hunch is that this is impossible in current tools b/c xml 
> is content- rather than display- oriented, but I wanted to at least ask.

Your hunch is correct, though like many hunches, not exactly for the 
reasons it suspects.

It's impossible not because of the "orientation" of XML as such, but 
because of the way XSLT's processing model is designed.

Note I infer "current tools" to mean current XSLT tools.

That is, the job is *not* impossible when working outside of XSLT's 
tree-to-tree conversion model -- more particularly, when working with an 
application that gives you hands-on access to the document serialization.

Accordingly, the XSLT solution to your problem is to write yourself a 
serializer (how's your Java? Python?) and hook that in at the end of a 
transform, instead of using the one your XSLT processor comes with (which 
isn't designed to work this way). Once you've got your hands in there you 
should be able to get your XML written however you like (the risk being 
that it might not be XML when you're done with it).

Alternatively, there are ways to cheat -- for example, you could write a 
transformation that would output plain text that would "happen to be" XML 
-- and that would contain the line breaks you wanted.

It would, however, be a nightmare to combine this strategy with a regular 
every-day transformation, though I can see it being done as a post-process.

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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