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Re: Apply-templates - how to omit top level element tags?

2005-09-08 13:50:07
On 9/8/05, Mike Schinkel <mikes(_at_)xtras(_dot_)com> wrote:
Are the examples in the spec not to your liking?

It isn't whether I like them or not, it's whether I can understand them
easily.  The problem is they explain in words but not in examples.

So, for example:

        "* selects all element children of the context node"
        ". selects the context node"
        "{no explicit definition of node()}"

node() is a node test, the most general form.  It's true for any node,
and since pretty much everything is a node, it'll always be true.  In
most situations it's kinda like "while (0==0) {}".  One other issue I
found confusing was the split between reading XSLT and the Xpath
specs.    Figure out the general layout of XPath first.


But no:

        Given
<Make><Name>Honda</Name><Model><Name>Civic</Name></Model><Model><Name>Ac
cord</Name></Model></Make>

        then
                "*" refers to....
                "." refers to....
                "node() refers to...

And so on.

Ahh, I see.  When I first started using XSLT I used the book
"Mastering XSLT".  To tell the truth, I don't know if what I picked up
with it.  It was only when I let it sit for a while and went back did
I really start getting the hang of it.  And that was more through
reading the specs and playing with different xml inputs and sources. 
I don't know of any good sources of examples like that, but I'm sure
there's quite a few people out there that can suggest some.

To understand http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath requires you to understand the
terms in the way they are used, which for a newbie, requires
chicken-or-egg logic.  Examples help the newbie learn the context in
which the terms are applies so that they can they learn the subject
which the terms are used to describe.

True, but this is pretty much the same for nearly anything to do with
computers.  I learned  any programming language.  To really understand
and manipulate SQL requires understanding of set theory and logic.

You might want to start with section 5 and then use the previous
sections to define things.



For example, my editorial team for http://www.howtoselectguides.com/ is
pushing me to drop the use of XML publishing and move to publishing in
Word.  Doing that will kill my ability to use the content in numerous
contexts, but because XML/XSLT is so difficult for the laymen, I may be
forced to.

It's one of those problems I'm rather puzzled about too.  XML is very
flexible but I have yet to find many tools that I could be pretty sure
that most people would be comfy with using.  I  somewhat
optimistically believe better tools are arriving.

Jon Gorman

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