Re: Do you use Knuth's algorithms book to solve XML p

Roger,

You can't do engineering without mathematics (in some form) -- but that
doesn't mean they are the same thing.

Cheers, Wendell

On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 3:09 PM Roger L Costello costello@xxxxxxxxx <
xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
> As you know, Donald Knuth has written a bunch of books that describe
> algorithms for solving just about every conceivable problem.
>
> I've always dreamed of, one day, getting a problem to solve, looking up
> the appropriate algorithm in one of Knuth's books, and then expressing the
> algorithm in XSLT.
>
> That day has yet to come.
>
> It seems like the problems involved in processing XML documents using XSLT
> is somehow different than "ordinary" problems, which makes Knuth's books
> not applicable.
>
> For example, recently I wrote an XSLT program to output information about
> each element (name, type, minOccurs, maxOccurs, facets) in all the files of
> an XML Schema. My program had to take into consideration complexTypes with
> complexContent, complexTypes with simpleContent, complexTypes with
> sequence, complexTypes with choice, complexTypes with sequence containing
> xs:any, etc. I looked at my finished program and thought, "What is the
> underlying algorithm? Is there something that I could have used from
> Knuth's books?" Well, the underlying algorithm is simply to consider all
> the ways that things can be expressed in XML Schema. I don't think there is
> anything in Knuth's books that would have helped.
>
> Question: Have you ever experienced this: You are given a problem to solve
> that involves processing XML. You find an appropriate algorithm in one of
> Knuth's books. You implement the algorithm in XSLT. TaDa! Finished. Problem
> solved. Has that ever happened to you?
>
> /Roger
> 
>
>

-- 
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