Re: [xsl] XML tags as map keys and impact on XSLT/XPath

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

At 06:14 AM 6/18/2010, Mike wrote:
> On 18/06/2010 07:28, Wolfgang Laun wrote:
> > Every now and then, people (not me) want to represent a 
> > Map<K,V>  in XML by using
> > s.th. like
> >     <map>
> >       <k1>v1</k1>
> >       <k2>v2</k2>
> >       ...
> >     </map>
> > with ki from K and vi from V. Apart from the obvious limitation for 
> > K's values, I feel that this is somehow violating the spirit of XML....

> I agree: in general it's a poor way of using XML, and it makes it 
> more difficult to process using XSLT.

I agree with everything said in this thread so far (including Mike's 
analysis of where the system-level problems are in naming elements 
after values), but I hasten to add that the problems suggested for 
the XSLT may be overstated, at least if you allow for a little creativity:

<xsl:key name="value-by-key" match="map/*" use="local-name()"/>

While I wouldn't recommend this, I don't see it as entirely 
illegitimate either, especially if you allow that the format Wolfgang 
offers has a kind of bizarre elegance for the non-XML savvy user. 
Which is arguable, I know. :-)

And sometimes it's the job of implementors to indulge the whims of designers.

That being said, I'd probably go with a variant of Andrew's suggestion:

<entry key="k1">v1</entry>
<entry key="k2">v2</entry>
<entry key="k3">v3</entry>

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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