Re: [xsl] Reflecting on: csv data to xml

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2013-06-30 09:49 +0200, Wolfgang Laun wrote:
> I decided to implement this in Perl and was hoping to be able to
> compare this with an equivalent implementation in XSLT, concentrating
> on ease of development and maintainability. Ken's implementation
> <http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/resources/#csv> filled the XSLT slot.
> ...
> Ken's solution falls short on a few points I was able to add easily. I can't
> say how difficult they would be to add to Ken's existing solution - it might
> not be a matter of minutes for some of those add-ons.

Off-list I've corresponded with Wolfgang and I've taken the time to 
implement in XSLT the features he was able to add easily to the Perl 
implementation:

  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/resources/#csv

I've also updated the readme-Crane-ParseCSV.html documentation to 
illustrate scenarios of working with the invocation parameters.  Note 
that the library also implements files with "Tab separated values" 
and I've parameterized the CSV file so as to exploit the code rather 
than duplicate the code as in the earlier library.

> Conclusions
> ...
> Ken used a proprietary (?) solution for embedding documentation that can
> be extracted into HTML.

It isn't proprietary, but it is my own design and implementation and 
I've made it open and available since 2004.  It is called XSLStyle 
and is available here:

  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/resources/#xslstyle

All of my customer XSLT documentation is generated using this, plus 
using this improves the quality of my stylesheets because I have 
coded "stylesheet writing rules" that are checked while creating the 
output HTML.  I don't deliver my code until these business rules are 
checked and I haven't omitted anything from my stylesheet (such as 
documentation for a particular top-level construct, or declaring 
types of global variables).

Note that XSLStyle defines only scaffolding within which stylesheet 
documentation is maintained in one of three vocabularies:  DocBook, 
DITA or XHTML.  I typically use DocBook, but I've written the DITA 
and XHTML environments for other users of XSLStyle.

To see a client's example of my documentation I delivered for 
stylesheets I wrote (interestingly, one of the stylesheets was 
obliged to be written using XML 1.1), they've posted it here:

http://sportsmlt.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/sportsmlt/2.0/sportsmlt2.html
http://sportsmlt.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/sportsmlt/2.0/sportsmlt2.xsl?view=markup

> XSLT is "special purpose" for XML handling and consequently easy to use,
> but it isn't better than the average language for string processing.

Granted, but in some platforms it may be the only available tool in 
the toolbox.  Not that I advocate using a hammer to pound a screw in 
carpentry, but if you are using a toolset where you are obliged to 
use XSLT for string processing, it is nice that string processing is 
available in XSLT 2.

Thank you, Wolfgang.

. . . . . . . . . Ken

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