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Re: [ProgSoc] XML languages
Thomas Given-Wilson wrote:
I am trying to find some information on XML programming languages.
Basically, what are the capabilities and limitations of existing
programing languages when it comes to XML. The restriction is that I
want to work with the XML only, e.g. no converting to a Java
representation and working in Java, the programming language must
operate strickly on XML and the XML declared types/properties.
This doesn't make sense to me.
XML [1] is a data format specification. If you have data that is valid
XML then its just a set of bits somewhere. In order to operate on XML
you need to parse it and load it in to a Document Object Model (DOM)
(e.g. [2]... I'm not sure if there's a W3C spec for XML DOMs... I think
there is... but... I dunno.).
XML itself (a data format specification) is divorced from DOMs. There
are various DOMs, and various DOMs standards. You can't process XML
without a DOM. (Well... you could do text processing... but in that case
you'd just be working with a very limited 'DOM' (i.e. an array of
characters)).
You're probably looking for an XSL [3] implementation. The most salient
component in your case likely being XPath [4], which is a standard
language for finding nodes.
It is possible to apply XSLT to XML without getting involved in the
intermediate DOM processing. See here [5] for example. That's an XML
document with a stylesheet processing instruction:
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="netfx20-overview.xsl" ?>
If you load this [5] in a modern browser it will apply the stylesheet [6].
[1] http://www.w3.org/XML/
[2] http://www.w3.org/DOM/
[3] http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath
[5] http://www.jj5.net/file/2007-02-11-175351/netfx20-overview.xml
[6] http://www.jj5.net/file/2007-02-11-175351/netfx20-overview.xsl
The sorts of programs I have in mind to be running in this language are:
1 - find all elements of type X
//X
2 - find all elements of type X inside a type Y
//Y//X
3 - find all elements of type X that return True from a function f
(where f is any function that accepts argument X and returns a
boolean)
You can embed JScript.NET in XSLT templates with the .NET libraries. I
do this from time to time... it's handy. But... probably not what you're
looking for.
Sorry... busy today. Must run.
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