xml-dev - Re: [ANN] Kludgey workarounds for IE and Netscape

[Andrew Bunner <bunner@massquantities.com>]

[James Clark]
>An XSL processor can do other things with the result tree than just
>write it out as XML.
>
>If you want to use XSL to produce some non-XML format, first you need to
>devise an XML representation of it.  For example, in the case of HTML,
>this would be "well-formed HTML", that is XML using the element types
>and attributes of XML.  Now write some code that turns this XML
>representation into the real thing.  Now you've just got to arrange for
>this code to get run instead of the usual code that writes the result
>tree out as XML.

  The moral of the story is that if your target language is not XML, then
you have to write your own tool to take it from XML to, let's say, HTML.
One way is to get into the XSL processor and add your own code, another
(less clean) way is to write something that post-processes the XML
representation of the target language.

  Unless, of course, we change the standard.

[Paul Prescod]
>Well, we could require the output to be PDF or PostScript or something,
>but XML seems the most logical choice. The important thing is to recognize
>that we do have to choose *something*.

  XSL seems perfectly well equipped to handle any text-based target
language. So why not let it?

  I guess I don't see the same need to "choose something" or restrict it in
any way other than to say "you must produce text". There must be something
very important that we gain by insisting the target language be one thing
or another. Help me understand what this important thing is.

-- Andrew

   Andrew Bunner
   President, Founder Mass Quantities, Inc.
   Professional Supplements for the Perfect Physique
   http://www.massquantities.com 

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