Re: Quasi-Literals and XML

On Thursday, February 01, 2001 4:42 AM
James Robertson wrote:

> At 01:13 1/02/2001, Linda van den Brink wrote:
>
> >My point is that in the first place the statement that XSL is not
> >Turing-complete is debatable, in the second place I'm not convinced
that XSL
> >is severely restricted in the possible transformations, and in the
third
> >place I wonder whether there is a causal relationship between lack
of
> >turing-completeness of XSL and restrictions in possible
transformations.
>
> Without regular exprssions (for example), XSLT cannot be
> used for transformations from "x" to XML, where "x" is
> some arbitrary source file.

Well, I never thought XLST was to do with turning
non-XML into XML. I suppose that will be necessary
for a while till the world sees the light, but while we're
waiting, there are other tools for that job
>
> You are also limited in how much you can (easily)
> manipulate the content of XML as part of the
> transformation.

Aha, this may really where the differences come to light.
I suppose it depends on the definition of "manipulate",
but as I understood it so far, XSLT isn't for manipulating
the *content* of XML but transforming its *structure*.
OK, that may involve selection or omission or concatenation
or re-ordering of content, but anything beyond that is surely
the realm of the producers of the XML itself, again using
appropriate tools for that different job?

Michael
------------------------------------------
Michael Beddow
http://www.mbeddow.net/


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