Re: [xsl] A question of style

[Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Florent Georges <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> dvint@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> B Hi,
>
>> I typically try to write as little code as possible. B If I
>> don't have to use an XSLT element to do something, then why
>> type all the extra code.
>
> B That's more or less what I do too, with the exception of
> xsl:text. B I use it sometimes when not required to not be
> surprised by whitespace text nodes and for better indentation.
> I think experience here makes a big difference, as always with
> indentation and coding standards, in every languages.


I definitely prefer using the concat() function than a sequence of
alternating <xsl:text> and <xsl:value-of>.

concat() is more or less the equivalent of prinf() in C or
string.format() in C#. We don't have control characters like \n or \t,
but this can easily be circumvented by using either variables (in XSLT
1.0) or character-maps in XSLT 2.0.

=================

*Even better*, one can use a separate "fill-in the blanks" XML
document in which only specific elements need to be transformed into
result values.

This is a good technique which completely separates presentation from
processing and allows that different "layouts" be filled-in by
different transformations or the results of the same transformation be
presented in different layouts.

I believe this is probably one of the most important piece of
knowledge that I have shared with our fellows XSLT developers in the
course of many years.



--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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