RE: creating XML in a servlet

Hi Jeni, 

Thanks a lot for the much needed detailed response!!   I will definitely
look into Cocoon.  If I may ask one more question - as I am new to XSL so
this is a very basic question: in order for me to accomplish what I want to
accomplish,  servlet needs to be able to interact with the XSL and get the
output of XSL back and build XML in memory. Is this possible?  I mean is
there API defined through which Java can interact with the XSL back and
forth.

Thanks!!

Jamal 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeni Tennison [mailto:jeni@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 3:23 PM
To: Najmi, Jamal
Cc: 'xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: Re:  creating XML in a servlet


Hi Jamal,

> I want to know if it is possible to create chunks of XML based on
> certain parameters that a servlet receives from a form submitted by
> a web client.

In principle, yes. This is possible in Cocoon, for example, provided
that you configure it correctly.

> For example if form parameter name = 'title', and value of this
> parameter is 'Football', then ask XSL to create the following chunk
> of XML:
>
> <title>Football</title>

In XSLT, the names of the parameters that a stylesheet uses must be
hardcoded into the stylesheet. So you could declare the $title
parameter:

<xsl:param name="title" />

and then pass in the value 'Football' for that title parameter, and
do:

  <title>
    <xsl:value-of select="$title" />
  </title>

But you can't vary the name of the parameter.

On the other hand, you could have a general parameter called
'parameter', for example:

<xsl:param name="parameter" />

and then use some delimiter in the value of that parameter to create
an element with a value. You can then pull the parameter value into a
'name' and 'value' using substring-before() and substring-after()
functions. Then create the element with a particular name using an
attribute value template in the name attribute of the xsl:element
instruction.

So for example if the $parameter parameter was set to 'title:Football'
then you could create the title element with:

  <xsl:element name="{substring-before($parameter, ':')}">
    <xsl:value-of select="substring-after($parameter, ':')" />
  </xsl:element>

Or have separate parameters for the name and value of the element.
  
Cheers,

Jeni

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

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