Feature Request: equivalent to DSSSL read-entity function

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

In my training materials I would like to inject the text string equivalent
of the contents of an external file.  By "text string equivalent", I expect
the read function to translate characters matching the built-in entities
into entity references.

In DSSSL, this was done with "(read-entity filename)", so I've used that in
my post-process to implement my own version of <xsl:read-entity
system-id="filename"> for the time being.

Example:

Consider a file "ken.txt" with the content:

    This is a test file
    It has <example> markup therein.

Consider the markup:  <ext-file href="ken.txt">

In my stylesheet, I already have the following (where the "p" namespace is
interpreted by my DSSSL-based back-end):

<xsl:template match="ext-file">             <!--obtaining from outside-->
  <p:read-entity system-id="{@href}"/>
</xsl:template>

I suppose the XSL equivalent could be just changing the prefix:

<xsl:template match="ext-file">             <!--obtaining from outside-->
  <xsl:read-entity system-id="{@href}"/>
</xsl:template>

This processing on the markup above would show up in the result tree
indistinguishable from:

<xsl:text>This is a test file
It has &lt;example&gt; markup therein.</xsl:text>

.... but it means that my training materials are created from my working
example and exercise files (not retyped with possible errors or maintenance
headaches) ... so I perceive a real need here.

Because of the filtering of sensitive characters, there is no risk of
creating invalid XML in the output stream, so I think it is innocuous (and
powerful) to add this to XSL.

Thanks!

............ Ken

--
G. Ken Holman         mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crane Softwrights Ltd.  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/
Box 266,                                V: +1(613)489-0999
Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0            F: +1(613)489-0995
Training:   http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/schedule.htm
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Shareware: http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/shareware.htm
Next XSL Training (see training link):   WWW8 - 1999-05-11


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