Re: Another approach to supporting non-XML data

An extension to this idea is that we can consider the XML instance
that refers to the binary data stream as a descriptor for transient
references (e.g. an open binary data stream).  We could use such "in
memory" and "in process" references for other things in the future.
The design pattern is that we pass around an XML instance that
contains the "keys" (typically URIs) that steps can use to access
these non-XML or hard to encode resources.

Of course, how the implementation of the step does this depends on the
XProc implementation's API and so the actual URI dereferencing is
implementation defined.  If you serialize the XML, you'd just have a
funny looking URI in the XML that isn't resolvable by other tools or
after the pipeline has finished.

-- 
--Alex Milowski
"The excellence of grammar as a guide is proportional to the paucity of the
inflexions, i.e. to the degree of analysis effected by the language
considered."

Bertrand Russell in a footnote of Principles of Mathematics

Received on Thursday, 4 October 2012 18:18:58 UTC