Re: [xsl] Hiding XML to an application (serialization?)

[Andrew Franz <afranz0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Angel Gavin wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have an application that consists of two components, say A and B.
> Component A is a kind of monitoring and control system. It reads application
> configuration files (in XML; customer requirement), keeps these files
> updated (e.g., updating values on user request) and call component B with
> (relevant) configuration parameters. The point is that we want to keep
> component A as much independent as possible from the XML "vocabulary" used
> in configuration files. In doing so, changes in file definition (e.g., new
> parameters) will not (ideally) affect component A. Component A is going to
> be developed by a third party, and the idea behind this is that we do not
> want to request a change in A in case we discover we have to add, say, a new
> configuration parameter.
>
> Lessons learnt in the past show that changing A is (irremediably) more
> frequent than expected. I think we can manage configuration files quite well
> by defining a set of XSLT scripts to do the dirty work (we would assume this
> activity), and then component A would only have to know which is the script
> to be executed, its input parameters and input/output XML files. Perhaps
> this solution is quite twisted, but it is supposed to work, isn't it? Any
> hint will be much appreciated.
>
> Concerning the second part of the problem (calling B with relevant
> configuration data), the good news are that we develop this component (and
> its interfaces) but I am afraid that:
>
> - B cannot read data from files
> - My colleagues in charge of the "B thing" do not want to receive data in
> XML. For sure there is a good reason for that (dunno!), but at the end the
> problem is the same. I feel a bit stupid playing around with this, but the
> point is that we want A to be independent of XML file structure, passing
> data to B in a "non-XML fashion" (the XSLT trick above will not work).
>  

Try http://cocoon.apache.org/

The sitemap would look something like the following (for CSV output):
   <map:match pattern="*.csv">
       <map:generate src="a.xml" />
       <map:transform src="sql2csv.xsl" />
       <map:serialize type="csv" />
   </map:match>

where the CSV serialzer is defined as:
       <map:serializer name="csv" mime-type="application/x-csv" 
src="org.apache.cocoon.serialization.TextSerializer">
           <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
           <omit-xml-declaration>yes</omit-xml-declaration>
       </map:serializer>

Other output types such as XLS, PDF, HTML, etc are possible simply by 
changing the final translation step (multiple possible) and serializer.

Warning: Once you start using Cocoon you'll find a whole lot of new 
problems to solve!

> I've been reading something about serialization. I do not know if this will
> be of help or not (far from being an expert on this; I have never used this
> stuff in my life). Any ideas?
>
> I know it sounds weird, but any help on this will be much appreciated
> (including that it is impossible to implement; it will allow me to save many
> time trying to convince my colleagues :)  )
>
> Many many many thanks in advance,
> Angel
>
>
>
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> Gracias por su colaboracion.
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