Re: [boost] Regression test / compiler status progress

From: William E. Kempf (williamkempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-07-11 11:16:46

----- Original Message -----
From: "Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>; <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [boost] Regression test / compiler status progress

> At 06:24 PM 7/8/2002, William E. Kempf wrote:
>
>  >A suggestion... instead of generating HTML I'd generate XML.  You can
> then
>  >generate HTML from the XML using XSLT.  The reasons for doing this:
>  >
>  >* The resulting XML file can be used for a lot more then just giving a
>  >pretty report on the web.  For instance, it could be used by a script
> that
>  >creates an installation package for a given platform which would exclude
>  >libraries that are not supported by that platform (just an example off
> the
>  >top of my head).
>  >
>  >* It's fairly easy to tweak the XSLT file for specific formatting
>  >requirements.  For example, you could use different XSLT files to
> generate
>  >HTML pages both for what libraries a specific compiler supports and what
>  >compilers a specific library supports in addition to the normal matrix
> used
>  >for status information today.  This could be useful for compiler vendors
>  >(among others), as they could generate reports tailored to their
business
>  >needs with little effort.
>
> Hum... I've read a lot about XML but have never actually tried to use it.

Depending on what you're doing it usually is very simple to deal with.  In
this case, since we don't need to parse the XML ourselves (and since we can
get by with out a DTD), it should be very simple.

> What set of tools do you use/recommend?

Depends on what you're doing ;).

For creating the XML I generally don't use any tools.  If it's static XML I
just write it in notepad.  XML editors usually get in the way instead of
making it easier.  If it's dynamic XML I just  generate it in code using the
I/O routines of what ever language I'm using.

For creating XSLT I also use notepad.  There are some XSLT editors
available, and maybe they would simplify a few things here.  I don't know.
But generally it's easy enough to just write it yourself that I haven't
bothered looking into editors.

For testing XSLT I use IE 6.

The only times I've needed to transform XML statically I've used Xalan.
Dynamically, which is the more frequent need, I've used Xalan within Java
code.  I've given a few links in another e-mail that will help you locator
other transform tools.  Since XML and XSLT are standardized (and generally
aren't extended with proprietary things like programming languages and HTML
have been) it doesn't matter much at all which tool you choose for doing the
transforms.

Bill Kempf