Re: WML as a top-down replacement for XSLT

[Denis Barbier <nospam@thanx>]

On Thu, May 09, 2002 at 08:10:39AM +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> 
> Would it be eventually possible to use WML as a top-down replacement for
> XSLT? XSLT seems very awkward to work with, and I actually like WML. Is
> the next version of WML going to be made more compliant with XML, so it
> would be possible?
> 
> For the time being, I may need to use DocBook XML with either DSSSL or
> XSLT. Both will require some tweaking to manage, and neither seem too
> straightforward to work with.

Hi,

indeed WML must be able to process XML files.  Anders Dinsen already
had a similar request, and we implemented some features in recent mp4h
versions.
There are several problems:
  * Encoding.
    I am not sure that all WML passes accept UTF-8 input, and even if so
    I heard Perl support was far from perfect.  (Is it still true?)
  * Elements and attributes.
    WML should not have problems with elements from XML files.  But
    many mp4h primitives have a non-XML syntax and thus most macros in
    WML include files are not XML compliant.  I am reluctant to change
    them in order not to break backward compatibility, and because
    a strict XML compliance would make code looks like XSLT ;)
  * Entities.
    Entity support is minimal (see mp4h manpage) and should follow XML
    standard more closely.  
  * Other XML constructs are not processed.

So if your pages only contain XML data, and processing instructions have
been put in separate files, I believe that WML could be used as an XML
processor.  You ``only'' have to write Makefiles and/or .wmkrc files,
and some macros.  I am interested in helping you to see how difficult
it is.

-- 
Denis Barbier
WML Maintainer
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