Re: [xsl] attribute value templates in elements fetched from a map?

Subject: Re: [xsl] attribute value templates in elements fetched from a map?
From: "Graydon graydon@xxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2020 14:23:38 -0000
On Wed, Sep 02, 2020 at 10:27:17PM -0000, Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx scripsit:
> I don't understand where you use xsl:evaluate and where you bind the
> value to $calculated.

Let me try to give less ambiguous context!

I've got a few hundred source elements; these group into a small number of structural categories.  (block, table, inline, link, etc.)  That happens via map lookup:

<xsl:template match="*[$categoryMap(name()) = 'block']>
...structure markup goes here....
...something has to define the style...
</xsl:template>

That part works.

Inside the structure markup, there's an element that defines the rendering style.  There are many more rendering styles than there are structures, but many fewer than input element names; perhaps a hundred.  The rendering style is usually but not always a simple mapping between the element name and a style name, and I could -- for at least 80% of the cases -- store that in the same map as element markup if I went from

map(xs:string,xs:string) 
to
map(xs:string,map(xs:string,item())

So the grouping templates would use

<xsl:template match="*[$categoryMap(name())('groupname') = 'block']>
....
</xsl:template>

and the style would use
<xsl:sequence select="$categoryMap(name())('style')"/>

and retrieve the style markup appropriate to this input element name.

This is attractive because I could keep all the details in the map, making long term maintenance simpler; the templates and the logic are stable and behaviour gets driven from the map, making it easy to add new elements or change a style.

The problem is that it isn't always a static style; sometimes other information that depends on the input element context is required, such as title depth. (title depth = "how many of my ancestors have titles?") This means there's extra/different markup in the style definition and a value that isn't statically derived from the element name. What I want to do is to store the style markup in the map in the same way, and populate it with the specific values somehow after I retrieve it.

So far, 
- anonymous functions are an awkward and doubtful way to create nested
  elements in the result tree; might as well just call a regular XSLT
  function directly and encapsulate the source-element-to-style mapping
  in that function
- evaluate doesn't get me anything because I can xsl:evaluate XPath, but
  not markup, so this isn't a way to process the elements retrieved from
  the map to populate values
- there isn't any way (that I know of) to say "plunk this block of
  markup into the evaluation context like we called xsl:call-template
  and this markup retrieved from the map is what was in the template we
  called"
- there isn't any way (that I know of) to put an attribute value
  template in the element markup in the map and have it evaluated at
  retrieval time.

What I want to know is if I'm missing something, and there's a way to get element markup back out of a map and put it into evaluation context without having to use transform() and start a whole new process and pass in the whole input document for context anyway.

(It's quite possible I am falsely enamoured of an opportunity for neatness and should not try to keep all of this "input element maps to" information in the same place.  It still feels like there ought to be way.)

Is that a bit less like nonsense?

-- 
Graydon Saunders  | graydonish@xxxxxxxxx
^fs oferiode, pisses swa mfg.
-- Deor  ("That passed, so may this.")

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