XSLClearer 0.1.0

XSLClearer makes XSL templates easier to write.

XSLClearer tries to make writing XSL templates easier.

It is a proof of concept. It is therefore in early stage of development. Though it works on a simple example, it will surely fail at more concrete case.

It is in fact a very crude compiler (lexical+grammar).

Documentation

Tags

The xsls format converts:

tag(attribute="value", attribute="value") {
    tag(attribute="value", attribute="value");
    tag();

    tag(attribute="value") {
        [<tag>Hello</tag>]
    }
}

into:

<xsl:tag attribute="value" attribute="value">
    <xsl:tag attribute="value" attribute="value" />
    <xsl:tag />

    <xsl:tag attribute="value">
        <tag>Hello</tag>
    </xsl:tag>
</xsl:tag>

XSLClearer recognizes tags and attributes up to XSLT 3.0. A tag/attribute without a preceding namespace must be and XSLT 3.0 or XSLT-FO tag/attribute. It otherwise throw an error. If there is a preceding namespace, no check is done.

If you need to use a closing bracket inside the [ ], you may escape it using the back-slash.

If you need to use a double quote inside the “ “, you may escape it using the back-slash.

Variables

The xsls format converts:

$variable = "string";

into:

<xsl:variable name="variable" select="string" />

The xsls format converts:

$variable = {
    instructions
}

into:

<xsl:variable name="variable">
    instructions
</xsl:variable>

Strings

Strings are enclosed with double quotes (“). It accepts as an escaping character (\ to insert , " to insert “ inside a string).

Special XML characters are automatically escaped.

Example:

"string-length(\"abc\") > 2"

translates into:

"string-length("abc") > 2"

CSS selector strings

Strings can contain CSS selector if they are directly preceded by a #.

Example:

#"ns|tag ns|tag#identifier"

translates into:

"//ns:tag//ns:tag[@id='identifier']"

It uses the cssselect Python module to do the conversion.

If this module is missing, xslclearer raises an exception.

Tags with only one attribute

The xsls format converts:

call-template("string") {
    instructions
}

into:

<xsl:call-template name="string">
    instructions
</xsl:call-template>

It works for the following tags (attribute):

• when (test),

• if (test),

• for-each (select),

• call-template (name),

• include (href),

• import (href),

• copy (use-attribute-sets),

• copy-of (select),

• message (terminate),

• preserve-space (elements),

• strip-space (elements),

• text (disable-output-escaping).

Though they may have more than one attribute, it also works for the following tags (attribute):

• value-of (select),

• apply-templates (select),

• template (name),

• attribute (name).

In this case, the argument must be given at the very first position.

Example:

template("template-name", match="*") {
    ...
}

translates into:

<xsl:template name="template-name" match="*">
    ...
</xsl:template>

Tag and attribute verification

The compiler verifies that identifiers are from the XSL or XSL-FO tags lists. Specifying a namespace disables the verification.

The verification alsa applies to the attributes.

Install

Just place the xslclearer.py in a directory pointed to by the PATH variable environment, make it executable and that’s all !

If you want syntax highlighting in gedit, you can copy the xsls.lang file to the /usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/language-specs directory (adjust it accordingly to your configuration).

Requirements

XSLClearer has been developped with Python 3.

It only requires the re and sys modules.

Usage

Examples:

python3 xslclearer.py input.xsls > output.xslt

cat input.xsls | python3 xslclearer.py > output.xslt

xslsproc style.xsls input.xml > output

The xslsproc is a wrapper for the xsltproc command. It analyzes the options to find the an xsls file. If it can be found, the file is transparently converted to an xslt stylesheet and feed to xsltproc. Every other option is passed without any change. You can therefore use xslsproc exactly like you would use xsltproc except it understands xsls files and not xslt files.

Example

The example directory contains an example of an XSL template converted to XSLS and a file called menu.xml on which the template works.