Re: What about XQuery?

Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
> The GRDDL document suggests that XSLT is the preferred language,
> because it is specifically designed for XML to XML transformations. I
> haven't tried, is there a reason that XQuery is not equally good for
> at least some classes of these transformations? Consider the following
> paragraph:
>
>> Developers of transformations should make available representations
>> in widely-supported formats. XSLT version 1[XSLT1]
>> <http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec#XSLT1> is the format most widely
>> supported by GRDDL-aware agents as of this writing, though though
>> XSLT2[XSLT2] <http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec#XSLT2> deployment
>> is increasing. While technically Javascript, C, or virtually any
>> other programming language may be used to express transformations for
>> GRDDL, XSLT is specifically designed to express XML to XML
>> transformations and has some good safety characteristics.
>
> The W3C has produced two different native XML languages that both have
> good safety characteristics and can do XML to XML transformations. Is
> XQuery equally good for this?
>
> The string XQuery does not occur at all in this document, which seems
> odd considering the several discussions of what language choice is
> best for processing XML. 
XQuery is a wonderful language that has my full support, as I have
mentioned to you before. However, current GRDDL implementations all
currently support only XSLT 1 [1], and so we do not mention XQuery per
se in the specification. However, the specification is written and the
Working Group decided  (issue #which-langs [2]) to allow different
transformation languages, such as XQuery, to be used..  Yet as current
GRDDL transformations "in the wild" (as in, before GRDDL entered W3C
process) have been written in XSLT, the specificiation uses XSLT in its
examples. As language use changes over time, it is a possibility that
XQuery will be used for more and more GRDDL transformations, and I for
one would be happy to see this, but at this point it may not necessitate
a change in the specification.

[1]http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/td/test_results
[2]http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/issues#issue-whichlangs



> Jonathan
>


-- 
		-harry

Harry Halpin,  University of Edinburgh 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin 6B522426

Received on Thursday, 19 July 2007 16:08:02 UTC