[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Best Practice: Element with data or element with childelem
I have to concur with David's critiques, but I think I can generalize the point you're trying to make: data-driven code is cool. The less your code has to know about individual names in the input data, the more general it can be. However, in practice, I find that data-driven transformations are overrated. I'd rather design an XML structure that fits well with the data. For example, I'd want to use attributes when I know the value will only ever be text. And then I'd prefer clear, elegant code using a combination of generic rules ("data-driven", if you like) and rules using hard-coded names, especially as they make explicit my intentions. Purely data-driven code is ugly boilerplate. I'd only make special XML design concessions for data-driven processing when the input contains a huge list of properties (such as when being dumped from a database). Evan Lenz http://lenzconsulting.com David Carlisle wrote: >> which approach is better, an image element that contains the location of a GIF file: >> >> <image>images/mighty_oj.gif</image> >> >> Or, an image element that contains a child element, which contains the location of the GIF file: >> >> <image> >> <src>images/mighty_oj.gif</src> >> </image> >> > > At that level of generality, without knowing anything about the rest of > the document these approaches are identical (just rename image to foo and > src to image in the second example). So it's impossible to make any > comparison. > > > >> Likewise, which is better, a retailer >> > Clearly that's just the same example with different element names. > > >> Using the second approach all this information can be provided in the >> XML document: >> > > It can be provided somewhere in either solution. > > >> The XSLT is not hardcoded to add a specific set of attributes; >> > > Of course it is! It has the hardcoded assumption that someone has gone > to the trouble of designing an xml format with exactly the same > attribute names as html but using elements rather than xml attributes. > I suppose it's possible someone has done that but unlikely. > > Far more likely is they just use the same attributes in which case you > can just use <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/> or that the element names are > different to the html attribute names in which case you need to encode > a translation table in your conversion and "hardwire" specific names in > the source and result document. > > In any case any features you can do with the second form you can clearly > do with the equivalent 1st form, it just depends where the additional > metadata is placed > > <imagedata> > <image>images/mighty_oj.gif</image> > <alt>...</alt> > ... > </imagedate> > > for example. > > David > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd is a company registered in England > and Wales with company number 1249803. The registered office is: > Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, United Kingdom. > > This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is > powered by MessageLabs. > ________________________________________________________________________ > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS > to support XML implementation and development. To minimize > spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting. > > [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/ > Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org > subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org > List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php > >
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