RE: [xsl] API for XSL

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Didier,

At 06:44 PM 3/8/2006, you wrote:
> Thanks for the pointer to an XSLT environment implemented in Python, I'll
> check that.

4Suite is built and shared by a bunch of smart guys. (Led by Uche 
Ogbuji whom you probably know, if only by reputation. They also have 
Mike Brown, who got an appreciative mention on this list a couple of days ago.)

> I searched in cocoon documentation how to pass parameters without too much
> success. There is probably a need for a book about cocoon Wendell ;-)

No doubt. My impression (again, my knowledge may be dated) is 
likewise that the books presently available aren't current with the 
toolkit, which continues to evolve at speed. When I've had such 
questions I've often had to dig in the docs, use the search engines, 
or if I'm really stuck, to ask on the relevant support list.

> Anyway, I found a potential answer by googling. The following list message
> mention a way to do it (ref:
> http://www.xslt.com/html/xsl-list/2005-11/msg00816.html ) I will investigate
> this potential solution.

If what you're asking for is browser-sniffing capability, so you can 
send XML and XSLT to some browsers, but an HTML result of a transform 
to another, yes Cocoon does have that:

http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/browser-selector.html

Not claiming expertise in this particular area (hey I make my living 
by knowing what I don't know), however, I can't say whether this 
capability is quite up to the job of the process partitioning you 
have described. The devil is always in the details, and for all I 
know there may be some pesky requirement you have that is not 
addressed by this feature.

Superficial impressions, however, would suggest that this would give 
you at least some leverage for your approach (B), as described below, 
particularly as you allow for partitioning "on the basis of ... 
pre-defined server side profiles of client capabilities".

As for 4Suite (the Python application), as I said they're helpful and 
smart, and if you ask on that list you're bound to get a principled 
and well-informed reply on how they recommend doing it and what 
special issues with it they recognize.

I hope other contributors to the list can help answer your question. 
If MDP is reading he'll probably confirm for us that your requirement 
can be addressed on .NET. In general, however, expertise on the full 
range of XML/XSLT server-side solutions is going to be hard to come 
by in one place -- many of us know something about one, two or three 
environments, but haven't done the research for detailed feature 
comparisons between all of them. Plus, the experts on this may not be 
reading this list, as their level of XSL-mastery is such that it's a 
long slog to learn anything new, so there's no point in it unless 
they want to help the newcomers. Plus they have more than enough to 
keep them busy in their local communities.

Ask on the 4Suite or Cocoon support lists, or those of other server 
frameworks (their name is Legion) and you'll be sure to get more 
authoritative answers.

Cheers,
Wendell

> My remaining question would now be: Do any of you know an environment able
> to partition the XSLT process on the client or the server on the basis of
> the client capabilities or on the basis of any pre-defined server side
> profiles of client capabilities.
>
> Two potential ways to do it:
> a) the server injects an XSLT processing instruction in the replied
> document. The stylesheet URI is specified in a separate setting than the
> original document (i.e. the transformed XML document).
> B) The server does nothing if the client is recognized as having XSLT
> processing capabilities and simply send the XML document which should, in
> that case, include a pre-defined XSLT processing instruction. Otherwise,
> perform a transformation, server side, using the very same embedded
> processing instruction as an indicator of which stylesheet to use for the
> transform.
>
> Can cocoon or any other environment do that? If yes, please, don't leave me
> in the dark and I would be grateful to know which one.


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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