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Re: Here's how to process XML documents written in German

• From: Chris Maloney <voldrani@gmail.com>
• To: Tony Graham <tgraham@mentea.net>
• Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:54:15 -0500

The real lesson here is that you should never make contracts with
Germans!  Problem solved.
;-)

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Tony Graham <tgraham@mentea.net> wrote:
> On Wed, January 30, 2013 6:47 pm, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> ...
>> This XPath expression does the job:
>>
>> sum(//Posten[@*[normalize-unicode(name(.)) eq
>> normalize-unicode('währung')][. eq 'EUR']])
>>
>> The normalize-unicode() function converts an attribute name into a
>> standard, canonical form.
>>
>> Lesson Learned:
>>
>> When processing markup with diacritical marks, beware that two characters
>> may visually appear the same but inside the computer they are represented
>> very differently. Design XPath expressions accordingly -- use
>> normalize-unicode() to convert markup into canonical form.
>
> The truism "validate at trust boundaries" comes to mind: if you can't
> trust the encoding or normalization form of the XML that you receive, then
> normalise it as soon as you receive it so all of your XML is consistent
> and you don't have to make your XPaths unreadable.
>
> Your example is much like the example in Section 3.1.1, "Why do we need
> character normalization?" [1] of "Character Model for the World Wide Web
> 1.0: Normalization".  That document discusses the advantages of early or
> late normalization as well as more aspects of normalization that most of
> us could think of on our own.  Unfortunately its recommendations are in
> flux (and have been since May last year), but your scenario would best be
> handled by 'late normalization' where you normalize the data after it's
> transmitted to you.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Tony Graham                                   tgraham@mentea.net
> Consultant                                 http://www.mentea.net
> Mentea       13 Kelly's Bay Beach, Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland
>  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
>     XML, XSL-FO and XSLT consulting, training and programming
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/#sec-WhyNormalization
>
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Here's how to process XML documents written in German
    • From: Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt <STAMMW@de.ibm.com>

• References:
  • Here's how to process XML documents written in German
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Here's how to process XML documents written in German
    • From: "Tony Graham" <tgraham@mentea.net>