Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived

Play the video

Subject: Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived
From: Abel Braaksma <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:56:15 +0100

Colin Adams wrote:

As a language it surpasses Java in all respects.

And many others. It is extremely clean and clear. If only Bertrand Meyer were able to attract more people into using Eiffel....

As for Gestalt versus xsltproc, Gestalt will be easier to install (when I make binaries available - just download the binary) except on most Linux systems where xsltproc comes installed for you. Xsltproc will run faster, but is non-compliant to the XSLT 1.0 recommendation. Gestalt should be fully compliant with the XSLT 1.0 subset of XSLT 2.0 backwards compatibility mode, except for not supporting the case-order attribute of xsl:sort yet (that might well be a big but for some applications), and you get all the power of XSLT 2.0 in addition (there are a few things that are not quite fuly supported yet - e.g. unparsed-text() only works on UTF-8 files at the moment).

Reading this, I really haven't the faintest idea why there are still people around there using xsltproc. Working around bugs and non-compliance issues. Or, well, maybe that's it: like the experience I had with XML Spy. Using it, you think "this is the way to do it". Using your wrong non compliant stylesheets with a compliant processor will give you errors, and you go "ah, you see? XML Spy is better! It does not give me errors". Whereas you should say: "oops, I thought I coded correctly, but instead, I did not. Now I can finally fix my erroneous stylesheets".

Just do fn:replace($text, 'XML Spy', 'xsltproc') on the above text with an XSLT 2 compliant processor.

My reason for not attempting to really test Gestalt is: unparsed-text(). We have literally thousands of internationalized text files that are parsed into XML using xsl:analyze-string and it really rocks (though it is much slower than doing the same in Perl, it is also much cleaner).

Isn't it possible to use the excellent IBM ICU libraries for the encodings from within Gestalt (or Eiffel)? Then you support 500+ encodings in one go. It is there in C and Java and it is open source.

Cheers!
-- Abel

Current Thread

Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived, (continued)

<- Previous	Index	Next ->
Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived, Colin Adams	Thread	Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived, Colin Adams
Re: XSLT 2.0 has arrived, Elliotte Harold	Date	Re: xpath question, David Carlisle
	Month

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Subscribe in XML format

RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3

XML Editor - Download a 15 Day Free Trial Now >

See What's New in Stylus Studio >

Buy Stylus Studio - XML Editor - Now >