Re: [FleXML-Users] What about a foreach tag?

[William F. D. <wil...@Th...>]

Hi Martin,

This looks like something useful to have, but if I am understanding
correctly, it does not belong in flexml.  The reason is that flexml
makes no interpretation of any tag or attribute name.  But you are
proposing that
  1) the 'foreach' tag now has a specific meaning;
  2) the 'variable' and 'values' attribute of the 'foreach' tag has a
specific meaning.

These thing will be surprising to someone expecting flexml to be an XML
parser-generator, as we currently say.

Some questions:

What if my DTD does not have
  <!ELEMENT foreach ...>

Or are you saying that *if* my DTD has
  <!ELEMENT foreach (plop)*>
  <!ATTLIST foreach
            variable CDATA #REQUIRED
            values CDATA #REQUIRED>

*then* flexml will interpret a document as you indicated?

Or, suppose my DTD has
  <!ELEMENT foreach (plop)*>
  <!ATTLIST foreach
            variable CDATA #IMPLIED
            values CDATA #IMPLIED>

what should flexml do?

Or, suppose my DTD has
  <!ELEMENT foreach (plop)*>
  <!ATTLIST foreach
            variable NMTOKEN #REQUIRED
            values CDATA #IMPLIED>

what should flexml do?

Even if you specify the requirement on the DTD quite tightly, the result
will be very surprising to somebody who just wants an XML parser.

I think your proposal would move flexml from being a parser to being an
interpretter or parser+interpretter, which would make it harder to
document (describe), debug, and understand.

Maybe some of the flexml codebase could be used to create an xml
interpretter (I actually like your idea in the specific case of
'foerach', but other constructs could also be easily imagined).  Then we
would might want to refactor out some common parts between the parser
and the interpretter.

Will


On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 17:11 +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was thinking about implementing a foreach tag able to multiplicate
> the xml.
> 
> For example, having the following in the file:
>   <foreach variable="i" values="1 2 3 4">
>    <plop key="$i" />
>   </foreach>
> would be equivalent to having the following:
>    <plop key="1" />
>    <plop key="2" />
>    <plop key="3" />
>    <plop key="4" />
> 
> It's somehow close to xsl transformation, but it would be embeeded
> directly in the XML, not in a separate file. Also, the syntax would be
> a bit different.
> 
> I have ideas about how to implement the beast, I was just wondering
> whether having this in flexml (maybe enabled by a command-line option)
> was ok for you guys, or if it was too specific to my own needs to be
> placed in the main tree.
> 
> Bye, Mt.
> 
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William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.scientific.thomson.com