This raises the question as to how much of the logic to put in XSLT
instructions and how much in XPath expressions.
Dimitre, I think, uses a style of coding in which a great deal of logic goes at
the XPath level, leading to XPath expressions of 20 lines or more. Most other
XSLT users I've come across seem to try and avoid this. I suspect the reasons
are mainly to do with the difficulty of formatting it nicely, and poor
diagnostics if you get it wrong (the XSLT processor will typically only give
you the line number of the XSLT instruction). Personally I'm happy to go to
three or four lines for an XPath expression, but beyond that I start to feel
uncomfortable with it; can't really explain why.
So I'm comfortable using XPath conditionals in roughly the same contexts as I
would use the ternary conditional of C or Java: maximum of one line per operand.
I do have a strong preferance for multiple template rules over xsl:choose. I
think this is mainly because it makes it easier to evolve the code as it
develops over time. Though a strong downside is that it can be very hard for
the reader of the code to work out which templates are going to fire under
which circumstances.
At the heart of this is that XSLT is a two-language system; it isn't fully
composable, in that XSLT constructs can't be called from XPath constructs. This
creates a strong incentive to break your code up into functions, which can be
called easily enough from either context.
Michael Kay
Saxonica
On 30 Mar 2014, at 13:25, David Rudel <fwqhgads(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 1:07 AM, Dimitre Novatchev
<dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
This is the full proof that XSLT conditional instructions can be
eliminated in any version of XSLT.
BTW, I have quite a lot of experience writing complex transformations
without any XSLT conditional instructions. :)
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
Dimitre, as typical, your posts are very insightful. I'm now wondering
how much I should consider avoiding conditionals in my own work.
This provoked a general question I have for experiences XSLT
programmers who frequently use <xsl:apply-templates> or some other
method to avoid what would normally (in a more imperative regime) be
done using conditional constructions.
Have you found that, in general, it is best to avoid conditional
constructs? If so, could you share what advantages you have found by
doing so?
Does this behavior extend to XPath's "if" statement as well, or do you
see that as a different beast? (In other words, do you find that the
advantages you obtain by avoiding XSL's conditionals do not apply as
much when considering cases that can be addressed using XPath
instead?)
Are there specific cases where conditional constructs should be
favored? (E.g., in <xsl:iterate> to allow Tail Call optimization?)
As I have confessed in the past, for my work the thing I value most
about XSLT is its support of XPath. I still tend to use imperative
programming, so my scripts tend to look like the XSLT equivalent of a
Java program that uses a single class.
-David
--
"A false conclusion, once arrived at and widely accepted is not
dislodged easily, and the less it is understood, the more tenaciously
it is held." - Cantor's Law of Preservation of Ignorance.
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