User-defined result formatting (was RE: REX evaluation)

> > XQuery FLWOR statements have extremely robust capabilities for
> > formatting results. Effectively, the result is a sequence, 
> each element
> > of which is the result of evaluation of an XQuery 
> expression with a set
> > of variables bound to a particular set of values.
> > In the absolute simplest case, you can write any XML 
> expression (known
> > in XQuery as a "direct constructor"), and then plug in 
> variable names
> > somewhere in the XML which will be substituted for that variable's
> > binding.
> 
> But doesn't this require the client to know the details of a
> particular serialization, such that it can construct a query template
> (a "direct constructor") of the proper form? That's not what I had in
> mind when I proposed this. If I'm being honest, I'm a bit obsessed --
> especially since I'm not the Nokia employee -- with the tiny client
> deployment scenario, in which it's far more realistic to be able to
> say:
> 
> SELECT...WHERE...AND...AS http://trix-serialization-uri
> 
> than expecting every client, including small devices, to know the
> details of various formats.
> 
> I think this could be a case where our experiences with the technology
> don't overlap very much. Which is one reason I'm not pushing 4.4 as a
> critical path requirement.

I certainly don't see such "externally stored formats" as a requirement,
either, and I wouldn't even support that as an objective.

Received on Wednesday, 9 June 2004 21:46:06 UTC