I XML/XSLT

Jorgen Sigvardsson

I'm still in love with it. :love: XSLT is going to make my life so much easier. -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine

Giles

Got any links to come good tutorials. I can see why its good, but I go blind when I see XSLT. :-D Quote from a clever bloke : "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

MS le Roux

So how long was it between feeling "I hate XSLT! Who designed this crap!?" to feeling "XSLT is really cool!"? It took me a while. :) (Although the "variable" thing still annoys me.)

Jorgen Sigvardsson

Well I saw the light directly when XML was introduced. I like order and structure, it was a perfect match. Then XSL and later XSLT came into the picture. At the time I was still at university and had no real need for it. So until now i haven't had any real feelings. I went from nothing to I love it in just a few minutes. :) -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine

Jorgen Sigvardsson

Check out www.w3.org[^]. They have lots of links to tutorials and references. -- Shine, enlighten me - shine Shine, awaken me - shine Shine for all your suffering - shine

Marc Clifton

Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: Well I saw the light directly when XML was introduced. I like order and structure, it was a perfect match. Yes, but it seems that everyone has their own order and structure, and therefore everything is still chaos. Although the hierarchy stuff has its uses, and XPath lets you extract data (although with certain frustrations). Still, it seems so ad hoc in its design. I guess that's because it tries to look like HTML, which is the king of ad hoc. Just my 2c though, having played around with the nuts and bolts of XML and XSD enough to finally figure out that, yes, it is useful, and no, I don't really like it. Give me a relational database any day and I'll be much happier. The hierarchical nature of XML isn't the same thing as a relation DB, but for some reason most everyone uses XML as if it were a DB. Not good. Or am I still off my rocker? Marc Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
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Jorgen Sigvardsson

Marc Clifton wrote: Although the hierarchy stuff has its uses, and XPath lets you extract data (although with certain frustrations). Imagine my frustration when I noticed that I'd been using the wrong xsl namespace. :( I used a very old IE 5.5 namespace. When I figured it out (happened when XPath-stuff count() and position() wouldn't work), I thought it would be easily fixed by just changing the xmlns:xsl="..." part. But no! Something was terribly f-ed up - my html transformation was really bizzarre. Then I found a script on MSDN which allegedly would transform from the older XSL style to XSLT. Did it work? Yes, but it did some really bizarre namespace tricks on me, and required that used the full qualifier for the xml namespace on virtually all elements. Gah! I was so pissed! So I rewrote it completly from scratch using the newer XSLT namespace.. I still haven't figured out what the difference was though. It just works nowTM. :) Marc Clifton wrote: Just my 2c though, having played around with the nuts and bolts of XML and XSD enough to finally figure out that, yes, it is useful, and no, I don't really like it. I still haven't really figured XSD out yet. I think know what it is supposed to do - ASN.1 in XML more or less, right? Also, if I've understood everything, it's also possible to write DTDs using XSD syntax instead of the old SGML-DTD syntax? I guess I'll know in a couple of days.. Maybe I'll take a closer look at your XSD-tool then. :) Marc Clifton wrote: The hierarchical nature of XML isn't the same thing as a relation DB, but for some reason most everyone uses XML as if it were a DB. Not good. Or am I still off my rocker? I think you are correct. XML documents shouldn't be treated as databases. Data islands perhaps, but not databases. However, I can see a point with databases returning XML output for smaller data sets. I can see all sorts of interesting applications in POS systems. Imagine firing a couple of SQL queries for X and Z-reports. Each query returns the results in XML. Then you just concatenate the results, and slap an XSLT-file on it. Since the XSLT-file does not depend on the compiled code, any changes to the transformation and presentation of the report can be done without having to recompile. Perfect for doing per customer features. XML and XSLT isn't the answer to everything, it's just another handy tool. A tool which I find ver

Michael A Barnhart

Your pointing out the problem of too many simply jumping on a band wagon and using it for what ever and not using the capability for what it is good for. Marc Clifton wrote: Give me a relational database any day and I'll be much happier. And what if that data base is 200 GIG and now you have to pass it around for people to us it. Or the alternative what if you tried to put that 200 Gig into a single XML file. Both Stupid right. Each tool is good for its function. So use them right and all can be happy. For my own needs I have several database options for various tasks. What is the primary cause of error is the transferring of that data. So XMLiz the query output, add the info so it is properly used. Lastly add transformation to the single authoritive data source you now have so it can be used to display to the user or sent directly into the next application. The cost of doing this verse programming every app to make data base queries is very attractive and when you have to integrate a new supplier or partner into your business process you do not need a team of 100's to reprogram everything. I love XML and XSLT for what they do. Not for how they can be misused. HUMM maybe that should be my sig? ""