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I need < - I get &lt;

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Tyler Baker <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>The example had to do with using MS's xsl:cdata tags.  Even though you can
argue
>that xsl:cdata and xsl:entity-ref are not 100% absolutely necessary, they
>certainly are convenient, especially to anyone doing XML -> HTML
transformations
>(which is about 99% of the real world XSL users out there).

I'm going the XML->HTML way myself (at least for the next year or two) and
face the same problems. Once I found out that specifying the result-ns to
HTML 4.0 causes XSL to magically handle:

<xsl:element name="SCRIPT"><xsl:text>
Any data here, including & < >
</xsl:text></xsl:element>

Then one can't really claim that XSL->HTML requires the use of <xsl:cdata>
or even that it makes life more convenient. The result namespace "hack" is a
most elegant one IMVHO; a pity it is buried in an editorial note (see
section 2.2). Your transformation example could easily have arised in a
normal XSL->XML transformation, and is easily solved within XSL.

>Why should XSL
>users have their needs dictated to them by a higher body.

Well... From my experience all standard bodies are undemocratic to some
extent. The W3C might be more so then usual, but the fact remains. One
presumes there are reasons for this - possibly questions of effectiveness.
That said, the W3C could probably be more open if it chose to. It is
probably more open then we conceive it to be.

>Why not add something
>in which adds no more complexity to using XSL or writing an XSL Processor,
>complements XML -> XML transformations, and gets the job done for the
majority
>of XSL users over the next couple of years.  If xsl:cdata and
xsl:entity-ref
>added any significant level of complexity to XSL I would be all against it.


Actually, adding <xsl:cdata> does add more complexity to an XSL processor -
actually, it is more a matter of complicating issues such as the SAX
interface. Since SAX is due for a new version, this might not be such a
great objection, but it is there.

Share & Enjoy,

    Oren Ben-Kiki


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