XSD/DTD to English tool

[Matt Silberstein]

I am looking for something that would "translate" an XSD (preferably)
or a DTD into something like English. The idea is to get something
like:

Element Person has
one or more titles which are strings
exactly one first name which is a string


The best would be a tool, second best would be a Perl module or an
XSLT that I can use or modify.

What I am looking for is some way to make it a bit easier for
non-technical people to examine the data structure to see if it
captures what they want. Not so much documentation as a communication
device.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

 

[Peter Flynn]

I am looking for something that would "translate" an XSD (preferably)
or a DTD into something like English. The idea is to get something
like:

Element Person has
one or more titles which are strings
exactly one first name which is a string

I suspect that on anything even as simple as HTML, the permutations of
phrasing you'd need would be beyond most systems to make understandable
English of.

///Peter

 

[Ed Beroset]

I suspect that on anything even as simple as HTML, the permutations of
phrasing you'd need would be beyond most systems to make understandable
English of.

I think you're probably right, but it reminds me of a venerable program
called cdecl which translates a C language declaration into English (or
vice versa). For example, if you ask:

explain char*(x[])(int, long)

It responds:

declare x as array of function (int, long) returning pointer to char

It might be an interesting exercise to see how far one could get using
an XSLT to parse the XSD and produce explanations in English. If you
really wanted to make it useful, it could produce HTML which would have
hyperlinks to subtypes.

Ed

 

[Joe Kesselman]

I am looking for something that would "translate" an XSD (preferably)
or a DTD into something like English.

Ought to be possible to do this as a stylesheet. I'm not sure the
translation would actually be a lot more informative for folks who don't
understand the significance/constraints implied by these structures,
especially since nontechnical folks often have trouble reading deeply
nested or alternative structures. But it's worth trying.

 

[Joe Kesselman]

I think you're probably right, but it reminds me of a venerable program
called cdecl which translates a C language declaration into English (or
vice versa).

I wrote one of those, many years ago. (Mine was known as CEX -- C
EXplainer.)

really wanted to make it useful, it could produce HTML which would have
hyperlinks to subtypes.

Sounds good to me...

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Ought to be possible to do this as a stylesheet. I'm not sure the
translation would actually be a lot more informative for folks who don't
understand the significance/constraints implied by these structures,
especially since nontechnical folks often have trouble reading deeply
nested or alternative structures. But it's worth trying.

Ok, so it does not exist. If I get around to doing anything with this,
and doing it with CSS is perhaps the best way, I will let people know.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

 

[Joseph Kesselman]

Ok, so it does not exist. If I get around to doing anything with this,

and doing it with CSS is perhaps the best way, I will let people know.

XSLT's considerably more powerful than CSS, so I'd go that way instead,
but... Go for it.