Spring XML Databases Framework Release 0.2

[Stuart Eccles <po...@codebitches.com>]

 

 

There is a new release of the Spring XML Databases Framework which on top of
some bug fixes and improvements to XML Database access includes 2 new
features which work independently of the XML Database access but provide
complementry features. 

There is also now extensive reference documentation (but not enough
examples) at http://springxmldb.sourceforge.net/ 

This release can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/springxmldb/ 

SPXForms 

The SPXForms implementation allows for binding of form elements to XML
documents in a similar way to Spring's Form Controllers work. An SPXForm
controller can be used to load an XML document, edit it on a form and have
the submission rebound to the XML document before validating and processing.


SPXForms is an XForms-like (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/) implementation.
It is very difficult to build a fully compliant XForms engine using
serverside technology as the original specification was designed to be
implemented as a clientside application. Currently serverside XForms
implementations of some form exist at Chiba ( http://chiba.sourceforge.net/
)and OXF ( http://www.orbeon.com/ ). SPXForms currently only supports a
small subset of XForms functionality. 

SPXForms consists of three main elements. 

- A serverside binding framework. Similar to the Spring binding framework,
this binds request parameters to the command object XML document and also
runs xforms actions submited to the serverside. 

- A base AbstractSpXFormsController which should be extended to create Form
Controllers for processing XML documents. 

- A JSP tag library for binding form elements to the XML document and for
XForms tags such as triggers, actions, groups, repeats and submits. 

Schematron Validator 

The SPX framework includes validating methods for validating data in XML
documents. This uses the Spring Validator interface which can be used to
validate XML models independently but integrates with the SPXForms MVC layer
for validating XML form input. 

The class
uk.co.lakesidetech.spxforms.validation.schematron.SchematronValidator is an
implementation of the Spring Validator interface. The schematron validator
can be used by specifiying the resource property schematronResource to point
to the XML definition file of the schematron. Within the schematron file are
a serious of patterns, rules with asserts and reports. 

Simply the validator will check all the rules given an xpath context in the
document. Within the rules are either asserts or reports which have xpath
tests. If the test evaluates to false on a assert an error is added with the
assert message (within the assert element), if a test evaluates to true on a
report then an error is added with the report message (within the report
element). The test can also just attempt to evaluate a value, if the value
is not found it evaluates to false. The message can either be the key to
text in a messages file or just the actual default text message to use. The
field name used for the error object is the context of the rule. 

XML database access changes 
- Fixed some minor bugs 
- added support for file dates in eXist and Xindice 
- added support for getting metadata in Xindice 

Thanks for your time. 

Stuart