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Discussion: xsl versus tpl PT's

RonaldV

Hi,

I'm trying to start up a discussion topic on the pro's and con's of xsl pt's vs. tpl pt's, specially in the real-life/day2day/technical/developer scenarios.

The obvious pro's of xsl are clear:
- open vs. propriety standard
- support for non-root usage
- support for non-os users

But what about:
- official support and documentation from iwov
- existing functions like the iwpt_get_ofile_name() and many more
- custom functions and modules; cpan functionality
- complexity, readability; xslt tends to be very lengthy code compared to tpl (??)
- debugging, tracing, logging
- clt support: can we execute a xslt from the command-line, workflow, cgi, etc just like we could via 'iwgen'
- preview functionality
- database access
- read or aggregate content from other dcr's/files/sources
- anything else I didn't think of yet
- .....

I hope we can turn this into a very helpful result for all of us. Maybe it will result on a best-practices document for xsl/tpl usage.

What are your opinions on this?

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Adam Stoller

Hi,

I'm trying to start up a discussion topic on the pro's and con's of xsl pt's vs. tpl pt's, specially in the real-life/day2day/technical/developer scenarios.

The obvious pro's of xsl are clear:
- open vs. propriety standard
- support for non-root usage
- support for non-os users

I think the above is pretty accurate.

But what about:

gzevin

just want to add something -

XSLT coding is VERY different from Perl techniques - really its functional programming vs procedural one. I cannot say I have a HUGE XSLT experience, but I did write quite a decent amount of code in it and I cant tell you that there are some things one will struggle to code in XSL - namely test processing perl is famous for. And string functions, etc DO exist in XSLT, but please don't tell me they will ever be shorter than ones in perl Smiley Happy

I am not sure I will ever be able to move to XSLT fully...

Another thing is that IWOV can no longer support perl TPLs as Jon **** is gone for some time now

Adam Stoller

Another thing is that IWOV can no longer support perl TPLs as Jon **** is gone for some time now

I'm not sure that "can no longer support" is accurate. Yes, Jon did a fantastic job creating this stuff - but it certainly would be possible for another developer to continue the effort - the issue appears to be one of IWOV no longer wants to support Perl TPLS - as they seem overzealous in trying to say that they "don't use Perl" - and the Perl TPLS won't work [right?] for Non-OS Users.

You & I (and a number of other folks here) would love to see Perl maintained and supported within TeamSite - but that doesn't seem to be the trend, so ultimately we may have to switch to using XSLT.

There's an extension called BSFPerl that is supposed to allow you to incorporate Perl code into XSLT (in the same way that you can incorporate Java code I believe) - but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

If anyone has experience with this (or similar) - please chime in.

gzevin

I'm not sure that "can no longer support" is accurate. Yes, Jon did a fantastic job creating this stuff - but it certainly would be possible for another developer to continue the effort - the issue appears to be one of IWOV no longer wants to support Perl TPLS - as they seem overzealous in trying to say that they "don't use Perl" - and the Perl TPLS won't work [right?] for Non-OS Users.

You & I (and a number of other folks here) would love to see Perl maintained and supported within TeamSite - but that doesn't seem to be the trend, so ultimately we may have to switch to using XSLT.

There's an extension called BSFPerl that is supposed to allow you to incorporate Perl code into XSLT (in the same way that you can incorporate Java code I believe) - but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

If anyone has experience with this (or similar) - please chime in.

I dunno.. maybe you're right and Jon's departure has coincided with the dramatic change of direction within IWOV... But I still have some strong suspicions that this is not the case.

With BSFPerl - I also heard about it, and propbably we should try it. Because doing 100 lines instead of one will kill me Smiley Happy

RonaldV

Another thing is that IWOV can no longer support perl TPLs as Jon **** is gone for some time now

Well in that case: why don't Iwov just GPL the code? :-)

gzevin

Well in that case: why don't Iwov just GPL the code? :-)

what for?

actually, I think it was pretty unfortunate that IWOV GPL'ed UVFS for Linux

shameem

Can somebody share some XSL files along with the DCT's used. If possible equivalent TPL's for the same XSL files.

I am novice to XSL presentaion and need your help to scale up ASAP.

Appreciate alot.

Faizi

Can somebody share some XSL files along with the DCT's used. If possible equivalent TPL's for the same XSL files.

I am novice to XSL presentaion and need your help to scale up ASAP.

Appreciate alot.

Hi Shamim,

You can see the Webcast on 15th Oct 2008 title "Advantages of XSLT based PTs: Transitioning from TPLs to XSL".

It will give you better understanding of XSLT.

Thanks,

RonaldV

Can somebody share some XSL files along with the DCT's used. If possible equivalent TPL's for the same XSL files.

I am novice to XSL presentaion and need your help to scale up ASAP.

Appreciate alot.

How about the good old rtfm: http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=xsl+tutorial&btnG=Google+zoeken&meta=

ccprofessional

-ve for xslt based PT:
There seems to be no way to generate multiple files from a single DCR using xslt based PT.

RonaldV

-ve for xslt based PT:
There seems to be no way to generate multiple files from a single DCR using xslt based PT.

See chp 'Generate Multiple Outputs' of the ts672-supp.pdf (http://support.interwoven.com/library/manuals/teamsite/html/672/ts.supp/supp_67213.html#wp1034676)

CRB

-ve for xslt based PT:
There seems to be no way to generate multiple files from a single DCR using xslt based PT.

i am not sure what IWOV recommends for this, but use redirect directive to generate as many output file.

example to write from 1 DCR (you can also read from multiple files/dcrs) and output 3 xml files:
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