Re: [xsl] regexs, grouping (?) and XSLT2?

[Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 10, 2004, at 9:25 AM, Jeni Tennison wrote:

> Contrast this with avoiding the datatyping all together:
>
> <xsl:function name="mods:year" as="xs:integer">
>   <xsl:param name="mods" as="element(mods:mods)" />
>   <xsl:sequence 
> select="xs:integer(substring($mods/mods:originInfo/mods:dateIssued, 1, 
> 4))" />
> </xsl:function>
>
> This function is so simple, you don't even need it to be a function;
> you can just put the value of the select attribute of the above
> <xsl:sequence> into the group-by attribute and be done.

Right.

I had hoped to be able to rely on the format-date function for stuff 
like a magazine article, where you might have:

	Time (1999) Title, Oct. 12.

I guess that's not that big a deal though, and I can just use the 
approach I was using with XSLT 1.

In case anyone's interested, I posted an archive with the stylesheet, 
the example doc, and an output example at:

	http://www.users.muohio.edu/darcusb/files/db-mods-xsl2.zip

I'd really like to make the stylesheet configurable via an XML style 
file.  The style file would basically define variables, lay them out in 
the appropriate order, and give instructions on surrounding 
punctuation.  Think BibTeX .bst files, but in XML.

So a layout for a book might look like (there'd also be other stuff 
that defines how to format names, lists of terms to use for thing like 
editors, and media, etc.):

	<reftype name="book">
	  <creator/>
	  <date before=" (" after=") ">
	    <year/>
	  </date>
	  <title font-shape="italic" after=", "/>
	  <origin before="(" after="), ">
	    <place after=":"/>
	    <publisher/>
	  </origin>
	  <genre after=", "/>
	  <medium before="(" after="), "/>
	  <physical-location before=", "/>
	  <url before=", "/>
	</reftype>

And that would get translated by the stylesheet into the appropriate 
ordering and such; in this case something like:

<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test="cs:reftype[@name='book']>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="mods:name"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="$year"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="mods:titleInfo"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="mods:originInfo"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="mods:genre"/>
    ...
  </xsl:when>
  ...
<xsl:choose>


This is the idea behind Peter Flynn's BiblioX project:

	http://silmaril.ie/bibliox/

Unfortunately, Peter has been too busy to finish it, and the code is 
beyond my comprehension.  I'm just wondering if there's a simpler way 
to do the same thing using the features of XSLT 2, so that I can get 
something working properly.  Indeed, there are a variety of projects 
interested in XLT-based bibliographic and citation formatting (among 
them the OpenOffice bib project).

BiblioX relies on keys to define the mappings between the instances and 
the variables.  While I don't really fully understand keys, I get the 
sense I might want to think about something like:

<xsl:key name="bibref" match="mods:mods" use="@ID" />
<xsl:key name="creator" match="mods:mods" use="mods:name"/>
<xsl:key name="title" match="mods:mods" use="mods:titleInfo"/>
<xsl:key name="location" match="mods:mods" use="mods:location"/>

... and then somehow define variables that get the processor to use the 
right elements in the right order (so the xpath expressions for the 
apply-templates above would be variables), and to apply the 
punctuation*.

Bruce

PS -  Technically punctuation could be handled with a template that 
spits out CSS code to do all the rendering, using stuff like 
span.title:after definitions, but that's not likely to work except in 
the most modern of browsers. I'd like the HTML code to be readable in 
applications like Word.