MSXML serialisation of empty elements
The problem: You’re using MSXML (and therefore XSLT 1.0). You’re outputting XHTML (and therefore using the xml method). You want to output an empty <a> element for an anchor, but want to make sure that you get a start tag and and end tag (<a id="foo"></a>) rather than an empty element tag (<a id="foo"/>).
Is the only solution disable-output-escaping?
A Creole by any other name...
Argh. I’ve been contacted by the guys at WikiCreole who want me to change the name of Creole. What should I do? Not only is “Creole” a great name for a schema language that deals with concurrent markup, but it’s a great acronym too (Composable regular expressions for overlapping languages etc.)
I did Google when I first came up with the name in August 2006, but didn’t discover WikiCreole (unsurprisingly, since it was only coined in July 2006 itself). But now far more many people know, care about and use WikiCreole than Creole grammars. So any suggestions for alternative names?
XTech Preparation
XTech 2007 is less than a month away! I’m going to be presenting on Creole: Validating Overlapping Markup in the Core Technologies track on Wednesday 16th May at 16:00. Yes, I know it’s really an Extreme paper, but (a) I’m not going to Extreme this year, (b) I’ll be reaching out to a slightly wider audience, and (c) I just cannot wait any longer to talk about Creole!
Pipelining in XSLT
I took on a long-term contract back in January which is good fun (of course I have to say that; my boss might read this) and pretty challenging.
First, I’m hobbled by having to use XSLT 1.0 (MSXML, what’s more). I hadn’t really realised either how fantastic XSLT 2.0 is, nor how used to it I’ve become, until I started this work. How I miss user-defined functions, sequence constructors and if expressions.
Second, my task is to take some XHTML generated from WordprocessingML and (a) turn all the CSS styling relative, so that it uses ems and percentages all over the place rather than points and (b) rationalise the CSS so that common styling appears in the <head> of the XHTML rather than on individual elements.
My new blog
So I finally have just enough spare capacity to start blogging. And if James Clark and David Carlisle can join the party late, why not me. (Yes, M. David Peterson, your eveel plan is coming to fruition.)
So what can you expect? Well, naturally there’ll be musings about XML, XSLT, schema languages and so on, including tips and tricks as I think of them. I’ll probably also have a few rants about overlapping markup, particularly LMNL and Creole. And anything else that sparks my interest.