[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Suggestions
Thanks for the suggestions, James Yes, this is 80% of what I'm looking for. The other 20% is: If I could 'include' a reference to the optional paragraph (which will live in a database) instead of directly embedding it in the XSL template (I want to reuse the same optional paragraph in a number of documents). What if I store the paragraph references as database selects in the XSL template and do the work of retrieving them from the database before the XSL engine does its work? Is there a better way? It sounds like it's time to read up on XSL. Scott > ---------- > From: James Tauber[SMTP:jtauber@j...] > Sent: April 13, 1999 10:42 PM > To: Scott Deboy > Cc: 'xml-dev@i...' > Subject: Re: Suggestions > > Scott Deboy wrote: > > > > I'm new to XML (reading the spec and learning about DTDs etc.) and I was > > hoping someone could point me in the right direction on an idea I have > to > > replace Word macros w/a 3-tier system using XML. > > > > Example: I want to build a letter macro using XML. > > > > The letter is mostly static text. An address is required, as well as a > > couple of other fields. Also, the letter has a couple of optional > > paragraphs that I need to prompt the user to answer. > > A better approach would be to represent the user provided information as > an XML document which is then given to an XSL engine to add the static > text. So your template/macro would be a combination of a DTD > constraining user-provided information, and an XSL stylesheet that takes > that information and produces the output. > > Here's a really simple example. > > Say you are writing thank you notes for an engagement party. > > For each person you have a document like: > > <Person wedding="yes"> > <Name>John</Name> > <Gift>vase</Gift> > </Person> > > that indicates the person's name, what gift they gave and whether they > are coming to the wedding. Here's a DTD: > > <!ELEMENT Person (Name,Gift)> > <!ATTLIST wedding (yes|no) #REQUIRED> > <!ELEMENT Name (#PCDATA)> > <!ELEMENT Gift (#PCDATA)> > > You then have an XSL stylesheet with a template such as: > > <xsl:template match="Person"> > <P>Dear <xsl:value-of select="Name"/>,</P> > <P>Thank you so much for your <xsl:value-of select="Gift"/>.</P> > <xsl:choose> > <xsl:when test='.[wedding="yes"]'> > <P>Look forward to seeing you at the wedding.</P> > </xsl:when> > <xsl:choose> > <P>James</P> > </xsl:template> > > Is this the sort of thing you wanted to do? > 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 (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe 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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