At 02:14 PM 8/31/2007, you wrote:
One day I'll understand the lingo! What I meant was that I was hoping the
output would be identical to the input except for the addition of the new
cumulative attributes y2 and y3. Is this called an "identity
transformation"?
Simon,
An identity transformation is one in which the output is identical to
the input, with allowances made for changes that aren't supposed to
count, such as the order of attributes. In other words, "tag
fidelity" is not required, but as far as the XML document-as-tree is
concerned, you get out just what you put in.
While pure identity transforms are sometimes useful (for example, you
may want to transcode character sets), it is much more common to want
your output to be nearly identical, not perfectly identical, to your
input, and indeed such transformations are very common in XSLT. This
describes your case exactly.
These transformations commonly use the "identity template" -- which
is one or another variant of a template that copies a node into the
output, and then applies templates to its children (those who haven't
memorized it can find it easily on the web) -- plus one or two other
templates to introduce just the changes wanted. For this reason,
these transforms are often called "identity transforms" although
strictly speaking, they might be better described as "near-identity
transforms" or "modified copying transforms".
Cheers,
Wendell
======================================================================
Wendell Piez
mailto:wapiez(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285
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Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
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