Yes, there's no reason why you shouldn't use XSLT to produce this kind of
output - though it's obviously a lot more work than producing HTML.
I'd suggest a two-phase approach: first generate an XML document that
contains a logical representation of your output (as boxes, lines, etc), and
then a rendition phase to turn this into ASCII art. If you do it that way,
you'll be able to make changes to both modules independently of each other.
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris [mailto:phatfish(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com]
Sent: 26 April 2005 20:27
To: XSL List
Subject: [xsl] Should XSLT be used to generate a plain text document?
Hi, i would like to create some (i guess you would call it) styled, or
formatted plain text.
Eg, some information about a music album: (this probably wont display
correctly, but you get the idea)
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Im So Good - Im The Best (2005) |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| About: |
| +-----------------------------------------------+ |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text text text text text text text text | |
| | Text text more text displayed by a loop. | |
| +-----------------------------------------------+ |
| |
| Tracklist: |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | # | Artist/Title | 00:00 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 01 | Im So Good - The First Track | 05:22 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 02 | Im So Good - The 2nd Track | 05:36 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 03 | Im So Good - Track Three | 07:24 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 04 | Im So Good - Four is my Fav | 04:55 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 05 | Im So Good - Truncation may hap..| 04:18 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| | 06 | Im So Good - Last is Best | 03:12 | |
| +----+----------------------------------+-------+ |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
I would like to know if it is possible to use XSLT to create a
document, like the above example, from an XML file.
I'm still new to XSL/T so i'm not really sure of its limitations, or
even if this is something i should be attempting with with it.
When i think about it transforming to plain text doesn't sound right,
but some expert opinions would be good :)
Thanks
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