Serialization of XDM

[Florent Georges]

David A. Lee wrote:

  Hi,

> There is no standard or even 'community accepted' way of
> serializing XDM

  While I used to think this is a problem, more and more I think
it is not (or at most a little problem we can live with.)  XDM
is a convenient (and needed) data structure to work with within a
piece of code (like a stylesheet or a query.)  (BTW this is a
pity that XProc is not based on XDM, IMHO)

  But if you want to pass information between two different
pieces of code (like between a query and a stylesheet) you can
just restrict yourself to nodes.  If you want to pass a sequence
of integers, you can instead pass an element containing elements
the content of which are integers...

  So the simple rule: independent pieces of code set boundaries
between which you can only pass nodes, or even document nodes.
That's what XML means, after all.  If you use compatible
processors, you should then be able to configure them to pass
those nodes in an efficient way, and if not you can serialize and
parse them without loosing any information.

  Just my two cents....

  Regards,

-- 
Florent Georges
http://www.fgeorges.org/