Re: [xsl] Best practices when reorganizing content?

["Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 21/03/2025 21:37, dvint@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> The other issues is that the content doesn't have any sort of
> model/scheam/dtd that is used to validate the results and it looks
> like anyone can add any structure (or not follow existing patterns)
> when ever they want. This structure has morphed over the last 2yrs of
> use so I have early content designs with more recent designs.
>
> What I'm trying to achieve:
> - stylesheet that is less procedural
> - reporting of new structures that I might want to look into
> - error reporting when the content I receive doesn't match "my model
> view" of what was intended
>
> Any suggestions greaty appreciated.


I wonder whether a single XSLT alone is a good approach, perhaps it is
worth trying to use a pipeline (e.g. XProc) to perform some Schematron
or JSON schema checking before processing with XSLT. Of course the
statement "and it looks like anyone can add any structure (or not follow
existing patterns) when ever they want" makes any attempt to work with
schemas rather daunting, on the other hand Schematron can probably check
whether there is anything outside/beyond the stuff you "target" with a
specific selection in XSLT. Or with XSLT 3 I would look into using
xsl:assert (https://www.w3.org/TR/xslt-30/#assertions) instead of
Schematron to check whether there is any unknown/unexpected content.