Re: Transforming the XSL-List archive into RSS 1.0

Jimmy --

As I wrote to you off list:

the archive is created auto-magically by software that is out of my control. Mulberry provides the labor and the $$$ to run XSL-List; the  actual mechanics are done by a service called "BigList".  We use them because this is the lowest cost way we could find to host a list as big and as active as XSL-List. However, because we contract the list maintenance out, we do not have control of the details of list administration and cannot change the format of the llist archive.

I suggest that you use James Clark's SX (http://www.jclark.com/sp/sx.htm) or Dave Ragett's HTML Tidy (http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/) to convert the files you receive (or download from the archive) into XML, and work from there.

-- Tommie



> >From: "Jimmy Cerra" <jimbolist@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>To: <XSL-List@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>Subject: Transforming the XSL-List archive into RSS 1.0
>>Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 18:41:54 -0400
>>
>>I subscribe to the XSL digest; however, I often find that there are a
>>lot of messages that I ignore.  Since I use dial-up, the wasted
>>bandwidth contributes to a significant wait.
>>
>>Furthermore I'm relatively new to XSL, so I decided to design a
>>stylesheet to transform the XSL-List archives into an RSS 1.0 file of
>>the last 12 or so hours (no descriptions; just titles and links in
>>sequential order by date) that I can automate.  The project would be
>>educational as well as useful, I figure.
>>
>>However, when I looked at the source of the list, I noticed that the
>>pages are served as the SGML-flavor of HTML.  :-(  XSL can't really work
>>with this because of the unbalanced tags (<li>, <br>, etcetera).
>>However, the pages do validate as HTML 4.01 Strict.  How do I work
>>around the unfortunate format and convert it to sensible XML?
>>
>>If there is no way, can I request that the list change the archives to
>>XHTML (or offer the XML-based format as an alternative)?
>>
>>(Note that I'm using Saxon 7.6.)
>>
>>--
>>Jimmy Cerra
>>
>>] "XML is just syntax, and you can therefore
>>]  use it any way you like." - Michael Kay
>
>
>
> XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


-- 
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B. Tommie Usdin                        mailto:btusdin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com   
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 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list