[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: white space transformations (was xinclude)


space transformations

> I realize this doesn't change anything, but if-MSXML-do-This-otherwise-do-That 
> spaghetti isn't going to kill the web, and we can probably sort out something
> better for the future.

True, have a look at http://www.w3.org/Math/XSL/ which is a stylesheet
collection (mine) that does nothing but this to do whatever is necessary
to render XHTML+MathML on  variety of browser/plugin combinations.
Actually I have no real objection to putting application specific code
in conditional sections of a stylesheet, but I have a big objection to
putting such code in the document.

However in the case of the white space dropping, there is nothing you
can do in the stylesheet at all. The parser gratuitously removes spaces
between words and you get no warning. This behaviour means that the
original vision of serving XML and having it transformed on the client
is seriously compromised, which is a shame as it's only really in the
last release of Mozilla that there has been a second browser other than
IE that reasonably supports client side stylesheets and one could have
hoped to serve XML in this way in a portable way.

The "solution" is to transform on the server and send HTML down the
wire. On the server of course you know what XSL engine is being used and
you can get whatever HTML you want, but that means you're just sending
presentation oriented HTML down the wire and in that case why was XML in
the loop at all? Could just have well had SGML at the back and used
DSSSL. XML was supposed to be SGML-light for serving over the web wasn't
it?

David


_____________________________________________________________________
This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet
delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further
information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call
Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service.

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
 

Stylus Studio has published XML-DEV in RSS and ATOM formats, enabling users to easily subcribe to the list from their preferred news reader application.


Stylus Studio Sponsored Links are added links designed to provide related and additional information to the visitors of this website. they were not included by the author in the initial post. To view the content without the Sponsor Links please click here.

Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.