On Thursday, January 09, 2003 5:51 PM, Jeni Tennison wrote:
But to answer your more general question, you're correct that in
unextended XSLT 1.0 you have to call templates to perform functions
and that sometimes this can lead to verbose and ungainly code.
However, most XSLT processors have a mechanism for defining
extension
functions. Several support EXSLT's
func:function/func:result elements,
which enable you to do:
Correct me if I'm wrong, or restarting an ancient debate, but it
strikes me that using XSLT in this way is basically "Wrong" or a Bad
Thing. I've found that usually there is a fairly simple way to avoid
procedural techniques ...
Extending XSLT with functions, along the lines of func:function or XSLT
2.0's xsl:function, does not make the language procedural - on the
contrary, it brings it closer to being a pure functional language. The
difference between a function and a named template is that a named
template can only "return" a result tree fragment, while a function can
return any value allowed by the type system.
Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael(_dot_)H(_dot_)Kay(_at_)ntlworld(_dot_)com
work: Michael(_dot_)Kay(_at_)softwareag(_dot_)com
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