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Posted to taglibs-dev@jakarta.apache.org by "Mark R. Diggory" <md...@latte.harvard.edu> on 2004/07/18 19:23:53 UTC

JSLT XML always falls short in capability.

For anyone who has worked with JAXP, they find the behavior of JSTL XML 
woefully inadequate in terms of configuring the underlying parser. I 
suspect that the JSTL spec maintains very little reference to 
configuring the underlying parser factory or transformer factory. This 
results in the usage of the JSTL XML being limited to only the most 
simplistic of parsing situations due to a tremendous amount of hardcoded 
behavior.

I could build a list of issues that cause JSTL XML to be a poor solution:

1.) No validation, even if the underlying parser supports it.
2.) No ability to set underlying parser/transformer features.
3.) No ability to customize error handlers / listeners
4.) No ability to take advantage of parsing SAX or InputStreams in the 
Transformer implementation, thus no capability to take advantage of 
features such as XSLT preview to make memory usage during parsing more 
efficient.
5.) JSTL restricts the content of x:transform tag to only be x:param 
tags, thus no iterative core tags can be used to automate parameter 
setting i.e.

<x:transform>
    <c:for-each ...>
	<x:param .../>
    </c:for-each>
</x:transform>

Clearly these issues make JSTL a poor solution for any sort of advanced 
XML parsing/transformation, this results in all but the most simplistic 
XML parsing solutions having to be implementated outside fo JSTL either 
in scripts or java classes (Servlets, Filters, Actions, Beans etc) using 
JAXP directly.

-Mark

-- 
Mark Diggory
Software Developer
Harvard MIT Data Center
http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu

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Re: JSLT XML always falls short in capability.

Posted by "Mark R. Diggory" <md...@latte.harvard.edu>.
Thanks, I'll take a look and join in the discussion there.

-Mark

Justyna Horwat wrote:

> I know that the current implementation has many shortcomings. Right now 
> I'm getting familiar with the JAXP 1.3 specification. I'm not versed in 
> JAXP to be able to have a discussion about the behavior yet but I'm 
> definitely going to keep your suggestions in mind when looking at it.
> 
> I went ahead and brought up your concerns to the JSTL specification 
> leads. They are always looking for use cases and ways to improve the 
> next version of JSTL.
> 
> The specification leads are always looking for input. You can join the 
> discussion here:
> 
> http://jstl-spec-public.dev.java.net
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Justyna
> 
> Mark R. Diggory wrote:
> 
>> For anyone who has worked with JAXP, they find the behavior of JSTL 
>> XML woefully inadequate in terms of configuring the underlying parser. 
>> I suspect that the JSTL spec maintains very little reference to 
>> configuring the underlying parser factory or transformer factory. This 
>> results in the usage of the JSTL XML being limited to only the most 
>> simplistic of parsing situations due to a tremendous amount of 
>> hardcoded behavior.
>>
>> I could build a list of issues that cause JSTL XML to be a poor solution:
>>
>> 1.) No validation, even if the underlying parser supports it.
>> 2.) No ability to set underlying parser/transformer features.
>> 3.) No ability to customize error handlers / listeners
>> 4.) No ability to take advantage of parsing SAX or InputStreams in the 
>> Transformer implementation, thus no capability to take advantage of 
>> features such as XSLT preview to make memory usage during parsing more 
>> efficient.
>> 5.) JSTL restricts the content of x:transform tag to only be x:param 
>> tags, thus no iterative core tags can be used to automate parameter 
>> setting i.e.
>>
>> <x:transform>
>>    <c:for-each ...>
>>     <x:param .../>
>>    </c:for-each>
>> </x:transform>
>>
>> Clearly these issues make JSTL a poor solution for any sort of 
>> advanced XML parsing/transformation, this results in all but the most 
>> simplistic XML parsing solutions having to be implementated outside fo 
>> JSTL either in scripts or java classes (Servlets, Filters, Actions, 
>> Beans etc) using JAXP directly.
>>
>> -Mark
>>
> 
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: taglibs-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
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> 

-- 
Mark Diggory
Software Developer
Harvard MIT Data Center
http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu

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Re: JSLT XML always falls short in capability.

Posted by Justyna Horwat <Ju...@sun.com>.
I know that the current implementation has many shortcomings. Right now 
I'm getting familiar with the JAXP 1.3 specification. I'm not versed in 
JAXP to be able to have a discussion about the behavior yet but I'm 
definitely going to keep your suggestions in mind when looking at it.

I went ahead and brought up your concerns to the JSTL specification 
leads. They are always looking for use cases and ways to improve the 
next version of JSTL.

The specification leads are always looking for input. You can join the 
discussion here:

http://jstl-spec-public.dev.java.net

Thanks,

Justyna

Mark R. Diggory wrote:

> For anyone who has worked with JAXP, they find the behavior of JSTL XML 
> woefully inadequate in terms of configuring the underlying parser. I 
> suspect that the JSTL spec maintains very little reference to 
> configuring the underlying parser factory or transformer factory. This 
> results in the usage of the JSTL XML being limited to only the most 
> simplistic of parsing situations due to a tremendous amount of hardcoded 
> behavior.
> 
> I could build a list of issues that cause JSTL XML to be a poor solution:
> 
> 1.) No validation, even if the underlying parser supports it.
> 2.) No ability to set underlying parser/transformer features.
> 3.) No ability to customize error handlers / listeners
> 4.) No ability to take advantage of parsing SAX or InputStreams in the 
> Transformer implementation, thus no capability to take advantage of 
> features such as XSLT preview to make memory usage during parsing more 
> efficient.
> 5.) JSTL restricts the content of x:transform tag to only be x:param 
> tags, thus no iterative core tags can be used to automate parameter 
> setting i.e.
> 
> <x:transform>
>    <c:for-each ...>
>     <x:param .../>
>    </c:for-each>
> </x:transform>
> 
> Clearly these issues make JSTL a poor solution for any sort of advanced 
> XML parsing/transformation, this results in all but the most simplistic 
> XML parsing solutions having to be implementated outside fo JSTL either 
> in scripts or java classes (Servlets, Filters, Actions, Beans etc) using 
> JAXP directly.
> 
> -Mark
> 


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