Re: [xsl] switching designs in xsl

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2003-12-15 15:59 +0100, Kloeck, Erwin wrote:
> I do some xsl:fo formatting that depends on the value of an element 
> <design-id value="design-001" />. I keep the xsl stylesheets for each 
> design in a separate directory 'design-001'. Currently, I import all 
> designs in my start xsl and then switch according to the value of the 
> design-id. This works but has the disadvantage that all templates, 
> attribute-sets etc have to be globally distinct, which I do by prefixing 
> them with a
> design-marker, e.g. 'd001-'. This strikes me as not very elegant. What 
> would be a more clever way to do this?

Many aspects of XSLT stylesheet processing require everything to be known 
at stylesheet writing time, including the name of every called template, 
all modes, match patterns (which is why they cannot have variables), etc.

Therefore, there are no run-time methods you can take advantage of for what 
you ask.

Have you considered synthesizing an included template that does as many 
xsl:includes and as many xsl:whens as you have fragments?  Then your 
hand-authored fragment can just call the "dispatch" named template passing 
the testable parameter and your synthesized fragment then dispatches to the 
appropriately included fragment?

This would keep your hand-authored fragment succinct and using XSLT to 
synthesize the included fragment would be a robust way of ensuring you have 
no typographical errors in the references to included fragments or called 
templates.

I hope this helps.

........................... Ken


--
North America (Washington, DC): 3-day XSLT/2-day XSL-FO 2004-02-09
Instructor-led on-site corporate, government & user group training
for XSLT and XSL-FO world-wide:  please contact us for the details

G. Ken Holman                 mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crane Softwrights Ltd.          http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0    +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995)
ISBN 0-13-065196-6                       Definitive XSLT and XPath
ISBN 0-13-140374-5                               Definitive XSL-FO
ISBN 1-894049-08-X   Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-11-X               Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO
Member of the XML Guild of Practitioners:     http://XMLGuild.info
Male Breast Cancer Awareness  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/bc


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