Re: Different views of the same XML file

Hi Marco,

> I want different views of the same XML file. I.e. I want to apply
> different XSL on the same XML file. How can I do it?

It kinda depends on what you're doing the transformation with.  If
you're using a command-line processor, then you can specify whatever
stylesheet you want on the command line - you don't have to rely on
the xml-stylesheet processing instruction.

If you're doing client-side transformations (e.g. in IE) then you have
to use scripting to operate MSXML and get it to switch between
stylesheets. However, there's a nice utility from Chris Bayes
(http://www.bayes.co.uk/xml) that allows you to specify several
xml-stylesheet processing instructions and then switch between them
using the context menu.  Hopefully you'll get that kind of thing
embedded in browsers at some point.

If you don't want to go the scripting route, then rather than copying
the entire XML file twice, you could move the majority of it into a
common file and reference that with an entity in two different files:

--- firstview.xml ---
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="firstview.xsl"?>
<!DOCTYPE doc [
<!ENTITY common SYSTEM 'common.xml'>
]>
<doc>
  &common;
</doc>
---

--- secondview.xml ---
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="secondview.xsl"?>
<!DOCTYPE doc [
<!ENTITY common SYSTEM 'common.xml'>
]>
<doc>
  &common;
</doc>
---

Or finally, you could combine the two stylesheets and then use a
parameter to determine which of the views to show.  You could then set
the parameter through the command line, through scripting, or if
you're using something like Cocoon, then through the URL that you use
to access the file.

I hope that helps,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/



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