Re: p:load?

Vasil Rangelov wrote:
>> To my mind, the point of p:load is that the URI that you load from can 
>> be dynamic (eg passed in as an option or contained in an input 
>> document). I don't see any way to do that *without* p:load, unless I've 
>> missed something?
> 
> If that's the case, shouldn't XProc somehow allow dynamic URIs be passed
> with <p:document/>? Perhaps by making "href" an actual option (i.e.
> adjustable with either p:option or with the shortcut syntax) with access to
> other options (and/or parameters?) by variable reference? I mean, what would
> that break?

It doesn't fit conceptually with how XProc works (at the moment). 
<p:document> isn't a step, so it doesn't have options: it's just a way 
of referring to an external document from within a <p:input>.

There's a possible extension of XProc some time in the future in which 
<p:input> *does* hold nested steps. In that putative version, 
<p:document> would be equivalent to <p:load>, and the href attribute on 
<p:document> would be an attribute value template and thus able to take 
dynamic values. But we don't have that facility now and working it all 
out would be a major undertaking. Something for the next version, not 
for this.

> And in any case (with or without p:load), what do you think about the
> validate-on-parse and resolve-externals options? And the p:validate-dtd
> step?

Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't say that I had a pressing need for 
validate-on-parse or resolve-externals in other locations, given their 
presence on <p:load>. I think that adding them in all the places where 
they might need to go would complicate the language, both in terms of 
the spec and in terms of its use.

I can see the utility of p:validate-dtd to validate intermediate 
documents, but every language I can think of that is primarily a 
DTD-driven language has a RELAX NG equivalent. And if it doesn't 
already, it's easy enough to create one. The only extra things that DTDs 
offer are entity declarations, and you wouldn't get entities in 
intermediate documents. So I don't see an overbearing requirement, but 
nor do I think it's a totally unreasonable request.

Cheers,

Jeni
-- 
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com

Received on Monday, 10 September 2007 08:04:41 UTC