RE: Future XSLT extensions. document(). Summary.

Hi Paul,

Paul said:
You may be tired, but could you please explain me what do you want
MS to support ?

<xsl:apply-templates select="document('localhost/test?sql=select title from
parts-catalog')/catalog/part">

1.  I don't think you want MS to acess the *clients* localhost ( that's
a huge security hole ) that means what you *realy* mean is:

Didier replies:
I am deeply sorry to tell you that, but this is not a security leak but a
feature present since the old day of the Internet. The localhost domain name
is a convention for the address 127.0.0.1 or 127.0.0.0 which is the loop
back address. Said differently, only the local host (or workstation) can use
this domain name since it is a loop back. So the next time you want to test
locally your web applications, you will be able to test them with the domain
name "localhost". This is a lot easier than testing things on a remote host.
May I recommend to you a good book on TCP/IP that explains the name
addressing schemas of the internet:

"Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 Principle, Protocols and Architecture,
Douglas E. Comer. Prentice hall.".

Paul said:
<xsl:apply-templates select="document('http://myhost/test?sql=select title
from
parts-catalog')/catalog/part">

Didier replies:
I stated a practical example. This is why the reference to a localhost
domain name was mentioned. Also this practical example showed a concrete
usage of a sql request encapsulated into a URL. Since the two major players
in the DB field are now providing HTTP access to DB, the capavity to access
data with a URL and get back from it an XML document is more and more
important. The example was just a demonstration of a useful construct.

But as a _more abstract_ expression would be
<xsl:apply-templates select="document('http://domainName/test?sql=select
title from parts-catalog')/catalog/part">
This would imply that the referred server (replaces the domainName
placeholder by a real domain name) has the SQL server module already
installed and that you created a parts-catalog table and selected from it
the title field. Then from the returned XML document, we get the node-set
corresponding to the fragment identified by the <part> element which is a
child element of the <catalog> element. Finally, all nodes are matched
against the templates of the XSLT style sheet.

[other text...]

I won't answer to the rest of this document and should probably no pursue
this thread either. Good luck.

Cheers
Didier PH Martin
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