Newbie Frustration:

L

Larry Lindstrom

Hello Again:

I appreciate all the assistance I've received
from this group. But I'm having trouble getting
traction in my effort to understand XML.

I took some time to research this, and I tried
to figure it out, but I'm stuck on the very next
lesson in ZVON's XSLT tutorial:

http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XSLTutorial/Output/example6_ch1.html

XML Source, I added the two PI statements:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="page_03_01.xsl"?>

<source>

<bold>Hello, world.</bold>
<red>I am </red>
<italic>fine.</italic>

</source>

XSL:

<xsl:stylesheet version = '1.0'
xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>

<xsl:template match="bold">
<p>
<b>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</b>
</p>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="red">
<p style="color:red">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</p>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="italic">
<p>
<i>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</i>
</p>
</xsl:template>


</xsl:stylesheet>

Internet Explorer does fine. The appropriate
bold, red and italic words are printed.

Mozilla displays nothing, blank screen.

Ok, I'll try to make this work. Suggestions
from this group that have helped with the last
examples:

Set the output method by adding one of the
following to the XSL:

<xsl:eek:utput method="html"/>
<xsl:eek:utput method="xml"/>

Nothing, blank page with either one of
these.

Wrap <html> tags around the contents of the
xsl:stylesheet element:

Mozilla displays a gray screen and ignores
the right mouse button. No hint as to
the problem.

Wrap <html> tags around the contents
of the templates:

Blank screen

Comment out all but one template, leave the
<html> tags in the template.

That works! Well it works if I only want
one template.

Why don't I get more than one template in the
contents my xsl:stylesheet element? The
stylesheet is the root element, isn't it? So I
should be able to have any number of xsl:template
elements inside the stylesheet element, shouldn't
I?

When I comment out all but one template, for
example the "bold" template, why did that match?

The xml had a "/source/bold" element, how did
XSTL find "bold"? The ZVON xpath tutorial shows
"//bold" to be the syntax to find any element with
that name in the hierarchy.

I'm in serious need of some tools. Preferably
free, to display the output of the XSLT, and to
report on the correctness of the XML and XSL files.
What do you recommend?

I tried W3C's validator on both the xml and the
xsl, and was told both files need a DOCTYPE. I
don't see exactly what to enter for a DOCTYPE in
an XML or XSL file, but when I try to cut and paste
examples of DOCTYPE from W3C's "Choosing a DOCTYPE"
page, nothing good happens.

Is there a tutorial with examples that work with
Mozilla? Is the problem with tutorials depending on
Microsoft proprietary features, Mozilla's failure to
meet W3C standards, or me being an idiot?

I'm a C++ programmer, why am I having so much
trouble connecting to XML?

Thanks
Larry
 
T

Thomas Scheffler

Larry said:
Hello Again:

I appreciate all the assistance I've received
from this group. But I'm having trouble getting
traction in my effort to understand XML.

I took some time to research this, and I tried
to figure it out, but I'm stuck on the very next
lesson in ZVON's XSLT tutorial:

http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XSLTutorial/Output/example6_ch1.html

XML Source, I added the two PI statements:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="page_03_01.xsl"?>

<source>

<bold>Hello, world.</bold>
<red>I am </red>
<italic>fine.</italic>

</source>

XSL:

<xsl:stylesheet version = '1.0'
xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>

<xsl:template match="bold">
<p>
<b>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</b>
</p>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="red">
<p style="color:red">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</p>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="italic">
<p>
<i>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</i>
</p>
</xsl:template>


</xsl:stylesheet>

Internet Explorer does fine. The appropriate
bold, red and italic words are printed.
Click to expand...

Internet Explorer displays it because it's not strict standard conform.
Mozilla displays nothing, blank screen.
Click to expand...

Mozilla is looking for your root element template. You always need to
define a template for your root element, ex:

<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
....
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</html>
</xsl:templates>

This should do the trick...

I'm in serious need of some tools. Preferably
free, to display the output of the XSLT, and to
report on the correctness of the XML and XSL files.
What do you recommend?
Click to expand...

I'm using a servlet and tomcat for that issue but of cause there will be
a lot of more easier things to do that, but I don't know of one.
I tried W3C's validator on both the xml and the
xsl, and was told both files need a DOCTYPE. I
don't see exactly what to enter for a DOCTYPE in
an XML or XSL file, but when I try to cut and paste
examples of DOCTYPE from W3C's "Choosing a DOCTYPE"
page, nothing good happens.
Click to expand...

XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE MyRootElement SYSTEM "MyDTDFileForSyntaxChecking.dtd">

XSL:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

As you see you don't really need a DocType for XML or XSL but you can
define one for your xml-documents.
Is there a tutorial with examples that work with
Mozilla? Is the problem with tutorials depending on
Microsoft proprietary features, Mozilla's failure to
meet W3C standards, or me being an idiot?
Click to expand...

Maybe it's all of them but I can't help you with a tutorial specific to
mozilla since it should be standart complient. So only your current one
seems to be untested with standart xslt and standard mozilla...
I'm a C++ programmer, why am I having so much
trouble connecting to XML?
Click to expand...

So do I with C/C++
Thanks
Larry
Click to expand...

Greets

Thomas Scheffler
 
C

Colin Webber

Personally, I gave up developing straight XSLT and wrote a simple
presentation mechanism which generates the XSLT for me using the
static HTML!

"Xorro" is an opensource presentation framework for web applications
that facilitates two-way iterative development between programmers and
web designers. It provides the power of XSLT in a simpler, more
maintainable form.

- Read a description:
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=17067&group_id=81250

- Download the latest version with a XHTML --> XSLT --> HTML demo:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xorro/xorro_with_demo.zip?download

View a highly successful web project that uses Xorro:
http://www.t-refer.com
https://www.t-refer.com/core/proces...ATHAWTE-2&enrollment.enrollment-type=new-sgc2

Enjoy!

Cheers
Colin
 
P

Patrick TJ McPhee

% I appreciate all the assistance I've received
% from this group. But I'm having trouble getting
% traction in my effort to understand XML.

Actually, you seem to be having trouble understanding HTML.

[...]

% XML Source, I added the two PI statements:

% <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
% <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="page_03_01.xsl"?>
%
% <source>
%
% <bold>Hello, world.</bold>
% <red>I am </red>
% <italic>fine.</italic>
%
% </source>

This is fine.

% <xsl:stylesheet version = '1.0'
% xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>

First problem is that you're generating HTML, but you're not
specifying the HTML output tag. This is fine if you want to generate
XHTML, except that you need to be even more careful about creating
a file with the correct structure in place if you're generating XHTML,
but isn't guaranteed to work if you're trying for HTML.

[...]

% Internet Explorer does fine. The appropriate
% bold, red and italic words are printed.

Traditional approach to handling HTML is to forge ahead and do your best
regardless of whether you have valid HTML. The problem is that it
encourages people to generate, or at least doesn't discourage people
from generating, invalid HTML, and ultimately this limits what you can
do in terms of adding new functionality. Joe Clark's _Building
Accessible Web Sites_ has a reasonable explanation of why it's evil and
pointless to do this.

% Mozilla displays nothing, blank screen.

On the other hand, it's not helpful for a browser to just give a blank
screen rather than explaining that there's a problem, so no points to
either side.

Look at the output of your transformation:

<p><b>Hello, world.</b></p>
<p style="color:red">I am </p>
<p><i>fine.</i></p>

The minimal requirement for SGML or XML mark-up is that the document
be wrapped in a single element, which in the case of HTML is <html>.
You need the transformation to give you this:

<html>
<p><b>Hello, world.</b></p>
<p style="color:red">I am </p>
<p><i>fine.</i></p>
</html>

Or this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<html>
<body>
<p><b>Hello, world.</b></p>
<p style="color:red">I am </p>
<p><i>fine.</i></p>
</body>
</html>

The secret is to figure out what to do to your stylesheet to get the
results that you need. You seem to be applying wild shots in the
dark in the hopes that you can get it to work.

% Wrap <html> tags around the contents of the
% xsl:stylesheet element:

Well, all this will do is stop it from being a stylesheet. What you
need is to add <html> tags around the output, not the input.

% Wrap <html> tags around the contents
% of the templates:

Do you mean

<xsl:template match="bold">
<html>
<p>
<b>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</b>
</p>
</html>
</xsl:template>

?

What this will do is create this output:

<html><p><b>Hello, world.</b></p></html>
<html><p style="color:red">I am </p></html>
<html><p><i>fine.</i></p></html>

Which is still not valid html.


% Comment out all but one template, leave the
% <html> tags in the template.
%
% That works! Well it works if I only want
% one template.

Because it gives, say,

<html><p><b>Hello, world.</b></p></html>

which is valid HTML.

% Why don't I get more than one template in the
% contents my xsl:stylesheet element? The
% stylesheet is the root element, isn't it? So I
% should be able to have any number of xsl:template
% elements inside the stylesheet element, shouldn't
% I?

Your stylesheet is structurally fine, it's just the output
that's no good.

% The xml had a "/source/bold" element, how did
% XSTL find "bold"? The ZVON xpath tutorial shows
% "//bold" to be the syntax to find any element with
% that name in the hierarchy.

I don't know if the tutorial is bad or if you've skipped over something
important. XPath path expressions consist of a sequence of steps, each
of which specifies a search axis, a node test, and one or more
predicates. Each step is evaluated in the contexts of a set of nodes
provided by the step to its left. //bold is a short-hand for
/descendent-or-self:node()/child:bold, where / at the start says that
the initial step should be evaluated in the context of the root node,
descendent-or-self and child are search axes, node() and bold are node
tests, and there are no predicates in sight.

Having said all that, match expressions aren't full XPath expressions,
and they get evaluated against every node in the tree, more-or-less.

% I'm in serious need of some tools. Preferably
% free, to display the output of the XSLT, and to
% report on the correctness of the XML and XSL files.
% What do you recommend?

You could get libxml and libxslt (http://xmlsoft.org) or Xerces
and Xalan (http://www.apache.org). There are several others floating
around the net.

% I tried W3C's validator on both the xml and the
% xsl, and was told both files need a DOCTYPE.

You should read the first bit of the XML spec where the difference
between valid and well-formed XML is discussed.

% I'm a C++ programmer, why am I having so much
% trouble connecting to XML?

It seems like you haven't read any basic introductory material and
you're not really trying to understand what's going on, just to get
something that works. Once you get past this, it will help with
XSLT if you keep in mind that it's more like m4 than C++.
 

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