RE: XSL controversy

Didier PH Martin writes:
 > Optimism is a good thing but according to laws of probabilities you have now
 > 50% chances that this scenario will happen and 50% this scenario won't. (or
 > if you take different premises this could be different) I may also say that
 > because my future is not yet happened that I will be as rich as Gate is

Oracle will implement the scenario if enough people ask for it; the
chances of you being rich as Bill are much much smaller.....

 > Now about the premises of XSL and Oracle. You scenario would implied that we
 > do a query to the Oracle data base, apply on the returned data set (i.e. a
 > XML document) a XSL script. The XSL script will have to pull data from more
 > than one document and not only from the returned document. The basis to all

no. My imaginary XSL script operates on a tree called $X. Currently,
$X is built in memory from parsing a text XML file, but in XWorld, it
a tree representing a portion of my database (I extracted a subset
with a conventional SQL query, maybe). My "id(@foo)" operates within
$X, and works just like in current XSL processing.

 > Also about your comment on id("Cuchulain"), we have to suppose that the
 > processing is to be done on a single table and that all elements are
 > identified by their primarily key. This latter has to be unique. Now we have
 > to check that Oracle 8 returns a data set with the primarily key embedded as
 > an element's attribute 
so, maybe I am using 'key("Cuchulain")', not id(). Its not
unreasonable to suppose that my initial definition of $X, on which my
script is to operate, has the Irish parliament members in some
subtree, uniquely identified. 

 > not existing yet. We don't know if that will exist one day in the XSL world.
 > It is probable that a data base vendor will do it, but not necessarily
 > Oracle. Oracle may do it but we don't know when. Too much maybes and perhaps
 > for me.
its not half as bad as the lottery. I was basing my suppositions on
published statements by Oracle people about how they see the
future. Of course, they may not implement it, but unless I completely
misunderstood, they plan to let me access my Oracle database using
XSL. Whether they do or not, it seems a feasible plan.

perhaps the Oracle guy who is on this list should comment, not me!

Sebastian


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