Re: Musings on parameters

The drawback with the element (p:parameters) would be that you'd only get a
string.  It would certainly be a convenient way to specify multiple
parameters within that restriction.  It would also, as you said, provide a
way to pass around parameters as sets.

It is certainly worth exploring.

I assume we'd still retain p:with-param so that non-string values can be
passed as parameters?


On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> wrote:

> Random thoughts from a few long drives.
>
> If we remove parameter input ports, then we've lost the mechanism by
> which steps which accept parameters are identified. Suppose instead of
> adding one back in, we simply say that all steps accept parameters,
> but most steps just ignore them.
>
> It's nice and uniform and easy to explain.
>
> And about setting them...this is kind of clunky:
>
>   <ex:some-step opt1="5" opt2="{concat('test', $foo)}">
>     <p:with-param name="param1" select="5"/>
>     <p:with-param name="param2" select="/a/b/c"/>
>   </ex:some-step>
>
> It's a shame you can't use AVTs for the parameters. How about a new
> element:
>
>   <ex:some-step opt1="5" opt2="{concat('test', $foo)}">
>     <p:parameters param1="5" param2="{/a/b/c}"/>
>   </ex:some-step>
>
> Then if we really, really going to stretch things, we could say that
> 'step' on p:parameters can name an ancestor step with the semantic
> that any parameters passed to that ancestor are also passed to this
> step.
>
>   <p:declare-step name="main">
>     <p:xslt>
>       <p:parameters step="main"/>
>       <p:with-param name="step" select="3+5"/>
>     </p:xslt>
>     ...
>
> Any of these ideas any good?
>
>                                         Be seeing you,
>                                           norm
>
> --
> Norman Walsh
> Lead Engineer
> MarkLogic Corporation
> Phone: +1 512 761 6676
> www.marklogic.com
>



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