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Re: Sablotron and PHP

Subject: Re: Sablotron and PHP
From: "Paul Sleigh" <bat@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 12:22:02 +1100
paul sleigh
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 19:17:25 -0500, "Wendell Piez"
<wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
> Anything on topic -- that is, having to do with XSL -- is welcome. If it's 
> a product pitch, and therefore not about XSL but about the product, it'll 
> be less welcome.

Fair enough.  Then, mostly for the benefit of anyone searching the
archives, I'll just say: a number of limitations of XSLT and XPath 1 can
be overcome by use of scheme handlers if you're using PHP's XSLT
functions via the Sablotron engine.  The relevant function is
xslt_set_scheme_handlers; it enables you to create custom functions to
handle the document() function.  Some ideas I've had since I stumbled
across it:

- document('sql:SELECT * FROM mytable') to run an SQL query inside an
XSLT stylesheet
- document('exists:myfile.xml') to see if a file exists
- document('calc:(-b+sqrt(4*a*c))/(2*a)') to perform arbitrary
calculations
- document('seq:A-Z') to generate a sequence of letters or numbers

... but basically the sky's the limit.  I'll be happy to talk directly to
anyone who, like me a week ago, desperately needs this sort of
functionality and can't find any doco.  This is not a commercial service
or plug for any product; I'm just doing what I can to help out my fellow
geek.

> But be warned -- one of the things that distinguishes an *XSL* application 
> (or XSLT or XPath application) is that it's portable to any conformant 
> processing environment.

This is, indeed, the point, and the reason why I will say no more here,
in the interests of brevity.  Although it's not pure XSL, this trick is
useful enough to be worth considering if your project is a good match and
you're in need of some extra power.  I wonder, tho, if other XSL engines
have a similar callback capability.

: Bat :
 
 
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Fruitbat                     PO Box 1269, Belconnen ACT 2616
Eric TF Bat                                http://flurf.net/
Paul Sleigh                                    bat@xxxxxxxxx
Karl Faustus von Aachen                         0407-468-244
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