[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Specification of a transform.

Subject: Re: Specification of a transform.
From: davep <davep@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 08:22:25 +0100
Re:  Specification of a transform.
On 10/09/13 03:19, Paul Tyson wrote:
On Mon, 2013-09-09 at 08:42 +0100, davep wrote:
Given schema A as input XML. Schema B as XML output.
    Assume no hierarchical simple relationship.
    Assume mapping of values needed from input values to output values.
    Assume literals are needed.
How do (might) you specify the required transform?

I have been struggling with a problem I think is similar to the one you have posed, except that it involves RDF graphs instead of XML schemas and instances. But since a tree is a specialized graph, the techniques for graphs should work for XML.

I was led to a solution whereby I specified the expected outcomes in a
generic rule language. I selected ISO Common Logic. Other options would
have been RuleML or RIF.

http://ruleml.org/rif/rulelog/spec/Rulelog.html and http://ruleml.org/papers/ for associated papers.

Does this seem like providing a formalism for plain English?
See http://ruleml.org/papers/tutorial-ruleml-20050513.html



The rules are expressed as quantified logical formulas, mainly of the form "for all things like this in the world of A, there must exist things like that in the world of B". Or conversely "If something like this exists in B, then something like that must exist in A."

Not unlike Schematron.



I'm sure there must be a large literature out there that hasn't filtered down to general industrial usage--particularly in XML practice--, which would specify the types of rules and transformations that are amenable to this approach. I'm also pretty sure there are limitations, in that some types of transformations cannot be specified in this manner. But I believe there is a large subset of practical problems that can be tackled this way.

Lots of unknowns.



Rules specified in a generic language can be put to different purposes: for generating test cases; for generating code for certain well-understood transformations; for generating queries over the datasets to check for rule violations; and for generating human-readable documentation.

I have not had the opportunity to do much of this in XML, although I
developed something similar using schematron for an XML validation
problem.

Regards,
--Paul

Thanks Paul.






regards

--
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

Current Thread

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

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

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

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

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.