Archive for the ‘XML’ Category

 

Cross-Browser XML and XSLT Processing

There is something inherently powerful about what direct data interaction and manipulation is capable of and the ease at which it performs. XSLT may be called a stylesheet but it is nothing like CSS, it deals directly in data management and presentation, utilizing advanced functionality typically reserved for a scripting language. Similar to what Smarty is to PHP templates, XSLT basically defines the rules for rendering an XML file, with one important distinction – the data is live. The data is subject to further XSL manipulation after the XML document has been initially transformed, facilitating many dynamic features. This has great implications on the web applications of the future; loading a widget could be as simple as dynamically loading an XML document which contains all settings and instructions, performing an XSLT transformation and appending the result document to the DOM. With those kind of capabilities the potential for such an application is limitless.