Re: [xsl] misc. confusion on "footnote" handling

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bruce,

At 08:27 PM 8/25/2004, you wrote:
> I understand that I want to think about breaking the last two into stuff like:
>
>         biblio-output-author-year.xsl
>         citation-output-author-year.xsl
>         biblio-output-footnote.xsl
>         citation-output-footnote.xsl
>
> .... and so forth, and using import instead.
>
> However, I don't want the user to choose which stylesheet to run 
> (main-author-year.xsl vs main-footnote.xsl).  I want that to be defined in 
> a separate non-XSL style file, and for the user always to run the same 
> stylesheet.
>
> Is there some smart way I can have one main stylesheet that imports 
> different stylesheets depending on that main "class" parameter?

No, not to my knowledge. I'd say simply "no", except I recognize we're 
talking about XSLT 2.0 here.

It's designed to work the way I've described it, and it works quite well. 
In fact, better than the method you've described, since parameterization is 
easier to handle (all parameters can be at the top level of the stylesheet 
and don't need to be imported conditionally).

You say you want the user always to run the same stylesheet, and 
parameterize your "operational mode" in a separate file. If that separate 
file were (for example) an Ant build configuration, or a file called in by 
such, which stylesheet is actually being run could be opaque to the user. 
(We commonly address such requirements as which-stylesheet-is-run at the 
level of the shell that invokes the process, not the process itself.)

You can't parameterize the import itself because it means that the 
stylesheet can't be compiled without parameters given at run time. (As I 
understand it: my education was in Ancient Greek, not modern compilers.)

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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