On Wednesday 07 February 2007 16:24, Florent Georges wrote:
> Frans Englich wrote:
[...]
> > $fs/directory[@name =
>
> "home"]/directory[@name="frans"]/directory[@name="xmlExamples"]//*[@mimeTyp
>e eq 'application/xml']
>
> I definitely prefer the Saxon way.
>
> > Is this idea overkill?
>
> Maybe. The Saxon default collection URI resolver is really great to
> use. The question is: is there real use cases that legitimates all
> that?
One of those questions that are always sensible to ask.
Yes, I think that the general idea of file system inspection is useful. For
example, I think you can build quite interesting -- and useful -- systems by
combining quick document loading, clever document caching, and file system
inspection. Perhaps Mike can provide examples, who actually has users using
such a mechanism. But I agree that it so far hasn't been demonstrated why
this would be justified in a broader perspective.
I think it's a good idea to get the different usage scenarios separated:
* When you know the URI at compile time and wants to iterate the files in that
folder, or similar. For this case specifying the URI with a URI makes sense,
and is why Saxon's approach is appealing here, and why using a namespace(and
hence prefix in paths, as pointed out by John) and XPath-paths appear
annoying. This is why a URI should be specified for whole paths, instead of
things like "directory[@name="frans"]/..".
* When you need to query/select files. For this I think the XPath syntax is
acceptable and provides the necessary functionality.
So, when using an extension function, it would instead look like this:
file-system("file:///home/frans/")/*[@name eq 'myFile.xml']
URIs for URIs, and XPath for querying. Sounds proper, at least.
Like this, the use of a namespace isn't very cumbersome. I'm still in favour
of a namespace, such that it can be combined with other vocabularies, such as
embedding it in other documents.
Frans
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