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Re: XSLT/XPath 2.0 (was "Identifying two tags...")
At 7:48 PM +0100 5/14/02, Francis Norton wrote:
>Not sure whether it's possible or not, but I certainly don't like
>the idea of re-inventing XML Schema data types such as dates in XSLT
>or XPath.
>
>I like the idea of being able to apply functions that depended on
>XML Schema data types in the absence of a PSVI, but I would hate to
>re-invent the data types incompatibly.
>
That's not necessary at all. Remember, schema or no schema all an XML
document really contains is strings. I'm saying the
getYear("1999-09-12") function should return the same value
regardless of what the schema may say about the type of the string
that it's passed. If the schema says that's a date, great! If the
schema says it isn't a date, the function works just the same and
still returns 1999.
In reverse if I call getYear("Barney") I expect the function to fail
or return some error value, regardless of what the schema says about
the type of the string I pass it.
You need to remember that a lot of the functions people are asking
for that handle dates, numbers, and other types are implemented
*today* in EXSLT. We do not need string typing to add these to the
language. They work *today* in weakly typed XSLT 1.0. Do not confuse
the need for date functions with the much less important need for
date types, and similarly for the other schema types.
I am explicitly asking for weak typing in XSLT 2.0.
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| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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