[oXygen-user] Interactively ask the user for a param value

[Wendell Piez]

Dan,

At 04:36 AM 7/28/2009, you wrote:
>We are thinking of adding a macro for user input, something like:
>
>${ask(message, type, default_value)}
>
>Example:
>${ask('Please enter you special file path parameter', file, 'c:\input.xml')}
>${ask('Please enter you password',  password)}

Slick.

>If an XSLT/XQuery parameter or another value from a transformation 
>scenario contains such a macro, oXygen will expand the value by 
>asking the user to enter a value.  The user will be asked each time 
>the scenario is executed.

... while, I guess, the 'type' keyword indicates what sort of info 
should be forthcoming, and therefore what sort of support oXygen 
might offer for providing it (file chooser dialog, etc.).

>Wendell, do you need something else? Do you want to bind the user 
>input to a certain variable and then use it later? There could be 
>problems, since the evaluation order is not guaranteed.

My original idea would be covered by this.

Then there are the more complicated possibilities prompted by Eliot's 
request. For example, could the result file name then be something 
like 'out/${tsfn}.xml' (where ${tsfn} is "transformation source file 
name, without extension")?

I can see how more exotic variants, like having the output name 
depend on a runtime parameter, could be pretty far out there.

Cheers,
Wendell



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