More news from my XML experiment.

I didn't have a lot of time to work on this after I last posted.
Originally I intended to write some perl to help generate XML.  I
didn't really get started on that.  I started downloading some tools
for evaluation.  I started playing with a windows-based editor called
XSLerator.  To try it out, I wrote an XSL stylesheet to convert the
files I had sent last time into completion functions.  (XSLerator is
nice to use.)

I had to make some tweaks to my original .xml to make the files
consistent.  But I was able to regenerate the original completion
scripts.  Well, almost, there were some white space differences.  I also
started writing XSL scripts for editting these XML files.

It occured to me that if these scripts could perform editting operations
on the XML it would be possible to harness the completion system to help
with the creation and modification of the XML files.  The completion
system turns command line creation into a multiple choice quiz.  It
would be possible to use the completion system's documentation on demand
to help guide the user, so the user wouldn't need to stare at the man
page.

I've attached the XSL for generating a completion function from .xml. ll
I'post some XML files later in the week that can be used with it.

To give you an idea, I've created a completion function for the Xalan
XSLT processor (lastest Xalan Java 2) from the Apache folks. For
those who are interested in size, the XML file is 2.2 times larger
than the generated completion function, though about 4 times as many
lines... There is no extra help or much indenting.  The process I
performed to get this file is listed below.

XSL Scripts and XML Files attached.  There is a lot of gratuitous perl
code here.  My feeling is that hese throw away scripts could be replaced
by more general purpose tools.

        #Create the initial xml file.
        java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN null.xml -OUT xalan.xml  \
             -XSL new_service.xsl \
             -PARAM Service "org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process" \ 
             -PARAM Filename "_xalan"

        #Create a list of the flags from the help output
        #(flags start with '-' and are separated
        # by whitespace/sq brackets, or equal signs.)
        flags=(`java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process|
               perl -ne 'chop;@w = split(/[\s\[\]=]+/);
               print join(" ",grep(/^-/ ,@w))," ";
              END{ print "\n";}' `)

        #Add the flags to the file.
        java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN xalan.xml -OUT xalan2.xml  \
             -XSL add_flags.xsl \
             -PARAM Service "org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process" \
             -PARAM Filename "_xalan"
             -PARAM Flags "$flags"


        #Get the explanations
        typeset -A help
        eval  "help=("  $(java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process | \
               perl -n -e 'chop; m#\[(-\w+).*\((.*)\)#; $flag = $1;$help = $2;
                    print "\"", $flag , "\" \"",$help,"\"\n" 
                    if ($flag ne "" && $help ne "");') ")"

        # Add the extracted explanations to the files.
        cp xalan2.xml xalan3.xml
        foreach f (${(k)help}) {
                java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN xalan3.xml \
                    -OUT xalan3b.xml -XSL add_explanation.xsl \
                    -PARAM Service "org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process" \
                    -PARAM Flag "$f" \
                    -PARAM Explanation "$help[$f]"
                cp xalan3b.xml xalan3.xml
        }

        #By hand to get final version of attached xalan.xml, I
        # did the following
            1) Added descriptions and actions.
            2) Prolog code, code for parameter_name state.
            3) Added some missing explanations.

        #Generate the completion function
        java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN xalan3.xml \
            -OUT _xalan -XSL arg.xsl

Much of the manual edits could be done via XSL scripts.  Though I
wanted to post some of this before going much further.  Also, adding
the explanations was slower than I had hoped.  I suspect that there is
a lot of start up costs associated with the java vm, and re-parsing
add_explanation.xsl.  So if it was possible to batch a bunch of edits I
think that would be better.  I suspect the way to do this is via an XSL
merge script.  The idea being to create a new XML file with deltas, and
have the XSL script take the master XML file and perform the edits from
the new XML file.

-FR.

Files included:
    null.xml             Shell XML file used by new_service.xsl 
    new_service.xsl      From null.xml creates an empty completion XML file
    add_flags.xsl        Add the specified flags to the service file.
    add_explanation.xsl  Add the explanation for the given Service and Flag
    arg.xsl              Takes a completion XML file and generates ZSH func.
    xalan.xml            The final XML file, after generation and hand edits.
    _xalan               The generated completion function


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/