RE: xslt stylesheet for xforms to xhtml

Wonderful response to probably the most asked qustion on the list. Do you
mind if I save this off and quote it the next time this question is asked?

- Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Dennedy [mailto:DDennedy@digitalbang.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 10:00 AM
To: Robert Trybis; www-forms@w3.org
Subject: RE: xslt stylesheet for xforms to xhtml



I think you are missing an important point. Sure, you could make an xslt
that translates a small subset of xforms to xhthml forms, but XForms is not
simply a new forms UI markup. The real value lies in its use of XML Schema
for validation and its binding to xml instance data. The XML Schema handling
simply can not be handled purely in xslt. I could see how a pure xslt can
handle binding to a single inline data instance, but it will break down when
you have to deal with multiple models, with multiple instances, and with
externally xlink-ed instances.

If you just want to learn about authoring xforms, then I suggest using the
X-Smiles browser. If you want to see an xslt+extension server-side
processor, then checkout the Chiba project on SourceForge. Both of these
will teach you a lot--not only authoring concepts, but implementation
details through source code. 

> From: Robert Trybis
> 
> Torsten wrote;
> >this is not possible without using extensions. (you need to evaluate
> xpaths at
> >runtime) it has been tried before ;-)
> 
> Surely this is not completely correct?
> Xforms is xml and xhtml is xml so a using xslt to translate
> between the two should be possible should it not?
> 
> Xforms exists because xhtml was found lacking for forms
> processing. So it must follow that there will be some things 
> that can be defined in xforms that cannot easily be done in 
> xhtml. However if I keep my xforms simple and self-contained 
> am I not likely to be able to make a usable translation?
> 
> I am just learning about xslt and xforms and having a
> stylesheet, that converts xforms to xhtml, would teach me a 
> lot - even if its just the limitations of what can be done. 
> Does anybody know where there is a stylesheet?
> 
> Regards
> Robert
> 
>

Received on Friday, 30 August 2002 10:25:10 UTC