Re: [xsl] Automatic html generation of xml file "advice needed"

[JBryant@xxxxxxxxx]

Well, the appearance of an HTML file is off topic for this list, but you 
are generating the thing with XSLT, so here's some general advice (hard to 
be specific without knowing more about your problem).

As a writer, I always think first of audience and purpose. That is, who is 
going to read it and why? If you think about what your reader actually 
needs or wants to know, a lot of document problems solve themselves.

Other than that, I would probably include empty elements (that is, 
elements with no content and no attributes). The additional information 
probably won't clutter the document much and, unless you are sure you can 
leave things out without causing problems for the reader, it's better to 
err on the side of inclusion. To give a definitive answer, though, I'd 
have to know who and why again.

HTH

Jay Bryant
Bryant Communication Services
(presently consulting at Synergistic Solution Technologies)





"Frequent Fliers" <frequent_fliers@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
05/27/2005 10:14 AM
Please respond to
xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


To
xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc

Subject
[xsl] Automatic html generation of xml file "advice needed"






Hi all.im in need of some advice. What i want to do, is, make a html 
representation of any xml file.I already have some xslt code to get me 
started. What i will do is take any arbitrary xml file and generate some 
standard html representation of it.The representation will comprise of 
components (element names, text data, attributes and their values).This 
shouldnt be too much of a problem. The tricky part is establishing a 
standard format i could apply. For example, should i display the xml file 
as 
one large table, or should i display each element name with <u> tags and 
display its text below it??
The attributes will be no problem, im thinking of the following,
-----------------------------------------------------------
<b>attributeName</b>: attributeValue
----------------------------------------------------------
and for any element that has a text node as a child, i will do something 
like,
--------------------------------------
<u>elementName</u>
textNodeValue.
--------------------------------------
But im thinking that there will be instances where elements will not have 
text nodes as immediate children, but as descendants, for example,
<book>
  <author>
    <first_name>Joe</first_name>
    <last_name>Bloggs</last_name>
  </author>
</book>
Im just thinking of the best way to represent elements!Should i only print 

element names that have a text node?if i do this than i would loose some 
element names, i.e the elements that dont have text nodes, such as author 
above.Can provide me with a little help for this problem?what do you 
reckon 
is my best way to tackle this??
Many thanks for your help,
Best wishes,
-Kilo Juliet-

_________________________________________________________________
Use MSN Messenger to send music and pics to your friends 
http://messenger.msn.co.uk