RE: XSLT Documentation (Was: RE: How is this part of the XSL

This is an interesting thread.

My comments in line. Thanks to Dave for starting to formalize this. Dave,
does this mean you are collecting a proposed features list? Are there any
formal requirements stipulated?

At 01:21 PM 6/22/00 +0100, DaveP wrote:
>Off the top of my head *some* of the key things to know about a stylesheet
>might be.

One might also want to know things about particular templates and about
particular constructions in templates. (Dave might have meant that.)

>1. 
>prime purpose of  a simple template
>e.g. Transforms element x into y/z
>
>2. Exception processing
>source document element a is processed within template for
>element b because....

Could be generalized to include explanations of conditional processing logic.

Conditional processing happens (at least) two ways: through template
matching (e.g match="p[@show='extralarge']") and through <xsl:if>/<xsl:choose>

>3. Use of global variables.
>E.g. variable $root holds the content of document(....)

Remember the logic of parameters and how/why they get passed, too.
And this folds into 1. when we start talking about fancy recursive templates.

>4. Interpretation of any special select patterns.
> E.g. this template selects all list items and does x.

Grouping/sorting logic could fall into this category.

I'm not sure there's a clear typing evident from these kinds of
explanations. There do seem to be levels of explanation -- explanations at
the stylesheet level, at the template level, within the template, and
perhaps of particular attribute values as well (such as funky select
attributes). I do think some clarification of requirements would help
direct a design.

Another question is how this tag structure should be validated. Clearly a
DTD isn't going to get far. Schematron?

Heh. This could be cool.

--Wendell


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