[RT] document autofragmentation

[Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>]

the problem of document fragmentation was not obvious even to the XSLT
designers... even if James Clark implemented the first XT extentions
using the ability to _break_ the generation of a single document into
more files.

Now, people asked for WML fragmentation, which is necessary because you
have great memory limit on the client side and you can't send more than
"some" bytes (normally around 1.5k). What if the page is bigger?

Also... if you looked at my ApacheCON2000 slides, I had a single
document and I used a stylesheet to extacts a single slide and encode
links to the previous/next/last/etc, then another stylesheet to render
the slide as HTML+CSS.

There are some cases where it makes sense to store the XML document into
an XML database... but this requires a great mind shift: declarative
languages like XSLT cannot work over XML databases, unless the whole
database is "filtered" thru the XSLT transformation sheet.

Instead, you have to do "procedural" things (yes, XSLT can be seen as
procedural if you use what is explained as "[2.3] Literal Result Element
as Stylesheet" in the XSLT specification).

But there is no standard way to say: "don't place this XPath query here
if it's more than 1.5k of data"... or split it on different pages and
keep track of that yourself.

A sort of smart URI cache that is able to fragment your page into pieces
and link them... as some SGML->HTML tools do with the "next|previous|up"
navigation links on top and bottom.

Problem: how the hell can be achive this automatically? is it possible?
is it feasible? is it worth the effort?

It is evident that such "fragmented documents" can be done today with
little effort, but they require a stylesheet to "remove" everything that
is not worth.... if we had an XPath generator... or a way to compile
extended-stylesheets as we do for XSP with the ability to Xpath-querying
directly an XML database...

Anyway, as my usual random thoughts, they are a bit messy.

And we should probably posticipate this on 2.1 or something like that.

Anyway, let's hear your comments.

-- 
Stefano Mazzocchi      One must still have chaos in oneself to be
                          able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org>                             Friedrich Nietzsche
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Re: [RT] document autofragmentation

[Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>]

Steve Muench wrote:
> 
> | It is evident that such "fragmented documents" can be done today...
> 
> Not sure if it's relevant at all but during my period trolling
> of the www.w3.org/TR page, I noticed this:
> 
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/xdnl/
> 
> Which seems to deal with at least similar kinds of issues...

Yes, it does.

They propose the separation of "navigation" and "style"... interesting
concept... the only thing that hurts me is the clear overlapping with
XSLT. In fact, I would have gone the other way around, defining some
sort of "xfragment" namespace for attributes... following the xlink
model.

But the more I think about it, the less I see a possible general way for
doing navigation this way.

Steve, are you guys in the XSLT WG planning to address such "navigation"
capabilities for WML decks or for fragmented documents?

-- 
Stefano Mazzocchi      One must still have chaos in oneself to be
                          able to give birth to a dancing star.
<st...@apache.org>                             Friedrich Nietzsche
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 Missed us in Orlando? Make it up with ApacheCON Europe in London!
------------------------- http://ApacheCon.Com ---------------------

Re: [RT] document autofragmentation

[Steve Muench <sm...@us.oracle.com>]

| It is evident that such "fragmented documents" can be done today...

Not sure if it's relevant at all but during my period trolling
of the www.w3.org/TR page, I noticed this:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/xdnl/

Which seems to deal with at least similar kinds of issues...

______________________________________________________________
Steve Muench, Lead XML Evangelist & Consulting Product Manager
Business Components for Java & XSQL Servlet Development Teams
Oracle Rep to the W3C XSL Working Group