Fwd: Re: XSL-Fo to PDF

Sorry I accidently send only to David...

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: XSL-Fo to PDF
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 23:22:24 -0500
From: Ilya Sterin <isterin@ciber.com>
To: David Tolpin <dvd@renderx.com>

On Thursday 21 February 2002 05:31 pm, David Tolpin wrote:
> > David, thanks.  I totally understand your question of why C? :-)
> >
> > Well I'm currently implementing a Perl library for XSL-Fo to PDF and it
> > is starting to get pretty complex with all the PDF formating and other
> > internals, so I thought I would just extend the C libs with Perl's
> > extension facilities (XS) and be done and over with it:-)  But I guess it
> > wasn't meant to be that easy, so off on a mission I am.
>
> The first version of RenderX XEP was written in perl with PDF backend
> making use of pdflib (www.pdflib.com). While perl had been an excellent
> prototyping tool I am inclined to think that XSL FO to PDF in perl is not
> of much use unless it is a very limited implementation.

Thanks, I'll try to find it, just to get an idea.

> Since I'd gone through it once (XEP version in perl was capable of many
> formatting features some widely used implementations don't have still,
> including complex table layout, footnotes, multicolumn text and other
> features) but perl is not the best tool to manipulate with data
> structures suitable for complex rendering (at least not with those
> I was able to design).
>
> Time will show, but if I were offered a perl XSL-FO to PDF now again
> I would choose a language I am comfortable with for manipulation
> with complex data structures and dynamic data types (and with good
> - not perl's reference counting - garbage collector) and a translator
> from that language to C, and then connect the engine to perl as a C library
> (A while ago I had wrote an Oberon-to-C translator -- would be almost
> a perfect tool for that approach).
>
> On the other hand, there have been several seemingly successful efforts
> to integrate perl with Java. Why not just to use one of those tool
> and a (the) free XSL FO to PDF formatter for your purposes?

That's actually a great idea, I'll have to look into.


David, thanks for all the more than helpful advice.  I'm glad I subscribed to
the list.

Ilya

> David Tolpin

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Received on Thursday, 21 February 2002 23:13:59 UTC