Re: [xml-dev] Auto schema/xpath generation from doc collection

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2009-05-20 06:20 -0700, Paul M wrote:
>Say one has a collection of docs:
>
>doc1
><para><sentence><bold>That</bold></sentence></para>
>doc2
>
><para><sentence><bold>That</bold></sentence></para>
>doc3
>
><paragraph><strong>That</strong></paragraph>
>....doc20000 (many docs)
>
>I am looking for a solution(application, ideas, designs) that would return:
>1. A listing of xpaths to elements
>para
>para/sentence
>paragraph/strong

I formalized that by creating an XML vocabulary for what I've termed 
"An XPath file".  Such an instance turns out to be very useful in 
specifying the required behaviours in a stylesheet 
specification.  The first support of XPath files I released converted 
a W3C Schema for UBL into an XPath file, but this proves unwieldy for 
document models such as UBL Order with 880,000 elements and 
attributes, not including recursion, for a single instance.

To make things more manageable, but also more fragile, I created a 
stylesheet to read an XML document and enumerate the elements and 
attributes found there-in:

   http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/resources/ubl/index.htm#xpathins

I say "fragile" because changing an instance happens more frequently 
than changing the model.  The UBL document model hasn't changed in 
over two years, while adding a single element to an instance will 
change the enumeration of subsequent elements in that instance's XPath file.

>OR
>2. A schema from the docs in a collection.
>OR
>3. Other ideas?

For what?  You've described a facility you need ... is that the 
entire problem or are you using this in a particular context that 
might spark other ideas?

As I said, the context for me for creating XPath files was/is for the 
specification of stylesheet behaviours:  one prints off a blank UN 
Layout Key form and manually annotates the form with the reference 
numbers enumerating the desired elements and attributes that belong 
in each box.  That becomes one component of the specification of what 
goes where.  One of the outputs from an "XPath file" is an XML 
instance that instantiates every element and attribute, using the 
element and attributes ordinal as its content.  Then when you run 
that instance through your development stylesheet, the result should 
be filled with numbers that match your manually-created specification.

This was presented at XML Europe 2004 but I see that the IDEAlliance 
archives cannot be accessed to review a copy of my paper.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken

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