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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Funny things about XML gizmos
 Hi, Having still XML gizmos ideas screeming for taking life on the electronic metaphor of the letter. I will then let them live an little and let them share some of their funny problems (are XML gizmos new wave Pocamons? :-) Still about biztalk and a workflow process let's the XML gizmo talk by itself . Note: before going any further and letting the biztalk XML gizmo take the scene, I should mention that the URN used for biztalk XML gizmos is quite weird and totally against the spirit of those who participated to the URN creation (including your humble servant). It seems that the guy who created the biztalk URN was playing truant (i.e Hooky) with the URN school and confounded URLs with URNs. Anyway, he's not alone in that case :-)) <?xml version="1.0"?> <BizTalk xmlns= "urn:schemas-biztalk-org:BizTalk/biztalk-0.81.xml"> <Route> <From locationID="111111111" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="3"/> <To locationID="222222222" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="23CF15"/> </Route> <Body> <my-e-business xmlns="urn:schema:e-biz0.56"> <?xml-stylesheet text="text/xsl" href="mystylesheet.xsl" media="screen"?> .... the my-e-business content .......... </my-e-business> </Body> </BizTalk> In fact here the biztalk XML gizmo is a routing container for my-e-business XML gizmo. If the biztalk XML gizmo would be a simple container I would have the above gizmo. But...wait a minute. (here we go, why is this guy still not on his bike instead of .../%$? - its my Karma ;-) If I consider the biztalk gizmo as a document as it would be interpreted by an XML browser, what then is the scope of the xml-stylesheet processing instruction? a) the whole document, b) the document fragment <my-e-business>. I would be inclined to think that XML browsers implementers would pick the option (a) because nothing is said about the scope and thus, implicitly the scope is applied to the whole....document. But, in our case, the whole XML gizmo is in fact a russian doll where the biztalk gizmo is a container for the my-e-business XML gizmo. Thus, what the XML browser expect is: <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet text="text/xsl" href="mystylesheet.xsl" media="screen"?> <BizTalk xmlns= "urn:schemas-biztalk-org:BizTalk/biztalk-0.81.xml"> <Route> <From locationID="111111111" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="3"/> <To locationID="222222222" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="23CF15"/> </Route> <Body> <my-e-business xmlns="urn:schema:e-biz0.56"> .... the my-e-business content .......... </my-e-business> </Body> </BizTalk> And the XML browser will consider the whole construct as a document to be rendered not, in fact, as a russian doll containing a smaller one. Each doll being also a separate entity. The encapsulation doll is like an Ethernet packet containing other kinds of packets (like for instance an IP packet). Or to keep my russian doll analogy, the outer doll contains a smaller one but each doll is a separete doll. By removing the inner doll and putting it beside the outer doll, it is then obvious that both are separate things. ------------------------------------------------------- | Routing envelope | | | | ----------------------------------------- | | | my-e-business content | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------ | | | ------------------------------------------------------- The XML browser and the style sheet implicit rule force the inner doll to be aware of the outer doll. Thus, the stylesheet will have to be designed in such ways that the my-e-business elements are contained in something else. Beware of absolute node's references! But wait a minute... (again...Hummm I am gonna break his bike on his head :-))) Let's say that at one point of the workflow process, there is a task agent wanting to mention that its content is displayable and adds a style sheet to the XML gizmo. The task station will have then to insert it for the whole document and not the fragment. But we have a problem... Let's the workflow engine explain himself what is his problem.... Now let's say that the workflow engine want to be a good boy and help his owners to promote their brand througout the workflow process. After all, the humans said around him, that a major benefit of XML compared to less well borned species is the fact that, for the first time, the marshalled content between task agents can be rendered by a standard language (note: And I personnaly find this great!). Our poor workflow engine is a bit embarrassed because the content that he has to transport has to be rendered its own way. On the other hand, his owners ask that their own brand and own rendition style to be used by the XML browser. Of course, our workflow engine owners where savvy enough to format the layout so that the other contained layout wouldn't look too foolish. Can you help the workflow engine? he's having trouble to please its owners and the owners of the content he's carrying. What should he do. He received something like <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="txt/xsl" href="MyOwnnersStyle.xsl" media="screen"?> <BizTalk xmlns= "urn:schemas-biztalk-org:BizTalk/biztalk-0.81.xml"> <Route> <From locationID="111111111" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="3"/> <To locationID="222222222" locationType="DUNS" process="" path="" handle="23CF15"/> </Route> <Body> <my-e-business xmlns="urn:schema:e-biz0.56"> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="mystylesheet.xsl" media="screen"?> .... the my-e-business content .......... </my-e-business> </Body> </BizTalk> Two style sheets, his owners' one and the customer's one. His good friend told him that he has to resolve intelligently the situation by creating himself a single stylesheet because the XML browser is aware only of a whole construct named document. Poor workflow engine, he's confused because he has to deal with fragments. If you where in the shoes of the workflow engine what would you do? (please remember that a strike is not allowed in the workflow engine universe :-)) Tanks for your help signed: a puzzled workflow engine, Cheers a human having fun with paradoxes and real life situations creating paradoxes Didier PH Martin mailto:martind@n... http://www.netfolder.com xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; unsubscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...) 
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