[Xsltforms-support] question about recursion in sub-forms (could it be made possible?)

[C. M. Sperberg-M. <cm...@bl...>]

If I understand correctly, XSLTForms does some systematic
modification of IDs in subforms, to ensure that they don't
conflict with IDs already in use. 

This leads me to wonder whether the ID changing is reliable
enough to allow a subform to load another copy of itself as
a subsubform.  In practice, the idea does not seem to work,
at least in the form I have produced at 

  http://blackmesatech.com/2016/06/recursive-subform-test/index.xhtml

but (as the example labeled "A pseudo-recursive editor" shows)
it could work, if there were a way to make the ID modifications
do the right thing.  I suppose one difficulty is that the right thing
may vary a bit from case to case.

If it were possible to make the interface between form and 
subform systematic enough to allow recursive loading of
(another copy of) a subform, then it would be somewhat easier
in XForms to deal with recursive structures with variable depth.

Thinking about such recursive structures I (for one) have often 
wished for named groups, or something analogous to XSLT 
templates and the XSLT apply-templates instruction, so as to
write a set of templates that apply, recursively, at each level
of the recursive structure.  Recursive subform loading would
be a good approximation of that idea.

As Alain often says, What do you think?

Could recursive subform loading be made possible?  

-- 
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* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
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