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Re: Defining non-WXS datatypes

• To: "Bob Foster" <bob@o...>
• Subject: Re: Defining non-WXS datatypes
• From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>
• Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 10:47:05 +0100
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• Envelope-to: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <012601c34d77$3589b4d0$1401a8c0@snobird>
• Organization: Jeni Tennison Consulting Ltd
• References: <000001c340ce$cba90c00$0100a8c0@picard><00d201c3414f$698f80e0$4bc8a8c0@A...><75896655722.20030717202646@j...><012601c34d77$3589b4d0$1401a8c0@snobird>
• Reply-to: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>

Hi Bob,

> The only thing that jumped out as a potential issue, which you also
> highlighted, is the incorporation of XSLT into the language. I'm
> afraid this is the camel's nose in the tent. Though your use of XSLT
> in the examples is carefully restricted, leaving the door ajar will
> invite the full language in and effectively prevent any
> implementation other than by XSLT. I am concerned that a process
> that might be performed as a side effect of validation could have
> overheads that swamp those of validation, itself.
>
> My suggestion is to carefully evaluate where you found XSLT useful
> (as in providing a template capability for error messages) and
> design your own language around these requirements. Any
> implementation via XSLT is going to first translate the document
> into an XSLT stylesheet, anyway, and it will have no trouble
> translating those elements (back) into XSLT syntax.

Yep; I think these are very reasonable comments. Looking over the test
datatype libraries that I put together, the parts that were useful
were:

  - the ability to create elements and text
  - the ability to define variables
  - the ability to get the "value-of" an XPath expression
  - conditional code (choose/if)

I also used some XSLT-only functions within the XPaths, in particular
format-number(), but that will hopefully be incorporated into XPath
2.0 anyway.

So I think it will be very easy to restrict what's needed in the code
sections to something a lot less burdensome to implementations.

Thanks,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/

• References:
  • Relax NG annoyances
    • From: "Jimmy Cerra" <jimbolist@h...>
  • Re: Relax NG annoyances
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
  • Defining non-WXS datatypes
    • From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@j...>
  • Re: Defining non-WXS datatypes
    • From: "Bob Foster" <bob@o...>

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