Custom XML Export

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Re: [NTG-context] Custom XML Export

Toby Miller

11 Sep 2015 11 Sep '15

8:21 a.m.

I'm using ConTeXt's export to XML feature, but I'd like more control over the XML output. Is there a way to define a TeX command that will output a specific tag (<tag>content</tag>) around some text in the output? Ideally I'd like to write a completely custom XML printer; it would be very simple, but would allow me to define what tags I want for different things. Is there a way to change the behaviour of the existing one, or could you recommend a starting point for writing a new one? Many thanks, Toby

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Hans Hagen

12 Sep 12 Sep

3:53 a.m.

On 9/11/2015 4:21 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...

I'm using ConTeXt's export to XML feature, but I'd like more control over the XML output. Is there a way to define a TeX command that will output a specific tag (<tag>content</tag>) around some text in the output?

\setupbackend[export=yes] \definehighlight[this] \starttext \startelement[what] \this{that} \input ward \stopelement \stoptext (there are also ways to add extra properties)

...

Ideally I'd like to write a completely custom XML printer; it would be very simple, but would allow me to define what tags I want for different things. Is there a way to change the behaviour of the existing one, or could you recommend a starting point for writing a new one?

the export resembles the structure used in the source and making each aspect configurable not only adds much overhead but is also kind of useless as one can easily transform xml into other xml; it's no problem to add a few more details here or there , but th emain indea behind the export is to have standardized and predictable output that then can be either rendered using css or converted (for that the raw file is best). Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

Toby Miller

5:37 a.m.

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for. I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place. I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it. Toby On 12/09/15 10:53, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

On 9/11/2015 4:21 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...
I'm using ConTeXt's export to XML feature, but I'd like more control over the XML output. Is there a way to define a TeX command that will output a specific tag (<tag>content</tag>) around some text in the output?

\setupbackend[export=yes]

\definehighlight[this]

\starttext \startelement[what] \this{that} \input ward \stopelement \stoptext

(there are also ways to add extra properties)

...
Ideally I'd like to write a completely custom XML printer; it would be very simple, but would allow me to define what tags I want for different things. Is there a way to change the behaviour of the existing one, or could you recommend a starting point for writing a new one?

the export resembles the structure used in the source and making each aspect configurable not only adds much overhead but is also kind of useless as one can easily transform xml into other xml; it's no problem to add a few more details here or there , but th emain indea behind the export is to have standardized and predictable output that then can be either rendered using css or converted (for that the raw file is best).

Hans

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________________

If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

Hans Hagen

6 a.m.

On 9/12/2015 1:37 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for.

I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

\setupbackend[export=yes] \setupexport[properties=yes] \starttext \startelement[test][this=that]whatever\stopelement \stoptext arbitrary empty elements are tricky as there is no content then, so that needs thinking (you can of course abuse \startelement \startelement[br]x\stopelement and then remove the x from the exported xml. I'll think about it (no time now). Hans

...

I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Toby

On 12/09/15 10:53, Hans Hagen wrote:

...
On 9/11/2015 4:21 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...
I'm using ConTeXt's export to XML feature, but I'd like more control over the XML output. Is there a way to define a TeX command that will output a specific tag (<tag>content</tag>) around some text in the output?

\setupbackend[export=yes]

\definehighlight[this]

\starttext \startelement[what] \this{that} \input ward \stopelement \stoptext

(there are also ways to add extra properties)

...
Ideally I'd like to write a completely custom XML printer; it would be very simple, but would allow me to define what tags I want for different things. Is there a way to change the behaviour of the existing one, or could you recommend a starting point for writing a new one?

the export resembles the structure used in the source and making each aspect configurable not only adds much overhead but is also kind of useless as one can easily transform xml into other xml; it's no problem to add a few more details here or there , but th emain indea behind the export is to have standardized and predictable output that then can be either rendered using css or converted (for that the raw file is best).

Hans

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________________

If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

Toby Miller

6:22 a.m.

On 12/09/15 13:00, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

On 9/12/2015 1:37 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...
Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for.

I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

\setupbackend[export=yes] \setupexport[properties=yes]

\starttext \startelement[test][this=that]whatever\stopelement \stoptext

arbitrary empty elements are tricky as there is no content then, so that needs thinking

(you can of course abuse \startelement

\startelement[br]x\stopelement

and then remove the x from the exported xml. I'll think about it (no time now).

Hans

Makes sense! I think I have what I need for the moment; thanks for your help. Toby

...

...
I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Toby

On 12/09/15 10:53, Hans Hagen wrote:

...
On 9/11/2015 4:21 PM, Toby Miller wrote:

...
I'm using ConTeXt's export to XML feature, but I'd like more control over the XML output. Is there a way to define a TeX command that will output a specific tag (<tag>content</tag>) around some text in the output?

\setupbackend[export=yes]

\definehighlight[this]

\starttext \startelement[what] \this{that} \input ward \stopelement \stoptext

(there are also ways to add extra properties)

...
Ideally I'd like to write a completely custom XML printer; it would be very simple, but would allow me to define what tags I want for different things. Is there a way to change the behaviour of the existing one, or could you recommend a starting point for writing a new one?

the export resembles the structure used in the source and making each aspect configurable not only adds much overhead but is also kind of useless as one can easily transform xml into other xml; it's no problem to add a few more details here or there , but th emain indea behind the export is to have standardized and predictable output that then can be either rendered using css or converted (for that the raw file is best).

Hans

----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________________

If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

Henning Hraban Ramm

6:04 a.m.

Am 2015-09-12 um 17:37 schrieb Toby Miller :

...

I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Hi Toby, have a look at http://wiki.contextgarden.net/XML http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Export http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ePub Since my ePub workflow is now running, I’ll hopefully soon enhance these pages... There’s also a useful manual in texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/epub-mkiv.pdf Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited. Greetlings, Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

Hans Hagen

6:14 a.m.

On 9/12/2015 2:04 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Am 2015-09-12 um 17:37 schrieb Toby Miller :

...
I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Hi Toby, have a look at

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/XML http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Export http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ePub

Since my ePub workflow is now running, I’ll hopefully soon enhance these pages...

There’s also a useful manual in texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/epub-mkiv.pdf

Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

I must admit that it's years ago that I really looked into it but we use xsltproc for generating the website (each time we update the distrubution we regenerate the pages). If I had to transform I'd use xsltproc. http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/xsltproc2.html Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

Toby Miller

6:21 a.m.

On 12/09/15 13:14, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

On 9/12/2015 2:04 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...
Am 2015-09-12 um 17:37 schrieb Toby Miller :

...
I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Hi Toby, have a look at

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/XML http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Export http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ePub

Since my ePub workflow is now running, I’ll hopefully soon enhance these pages...

There’s also a useful manual in texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/epub-mkiv.pdf

Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

I must admit that it's years ago that I really looked into it but we use xsltproc for generating the website (each time we update the distrubution we regenerate the pages). If I had to transform I'd use xsltproc.

http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/xsltproc2.html

Hans

Thanks for the suggestions. I had found those pages, but I'll keep watching them for updates. I hadn't particularly planned how I would do the XML transformation, and I haven't done it before, but a quick Google would suggest xsltproc too, and that's what I'll start with if I need to. Toby

luigi scarso

6:14 a.m.

On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 2:04 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Am 2015-09-12 um 17:37 schrieb Toby Miller :

...
I have a few other things I'd like to be able to do with this kind of thing (print ' ' self-closed tags for example, and add attributes as you say), but I feel bad about posting to the list for them. Is there any documentation for these features at all? I couldn't find any reference to the \startelement command when I looked, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

I'll take your advice and not try to adapt the export system. Now that I can print tags at least I think XML transformation should be able to deal with everything I need if it comes to it.

Hi Toby, have a look at

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/XML http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Export http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ePub

Since my ePub workflow is now running, I’ll hopefully soon enhance these pages...

There’s also a useful manual in texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/epub-mkiv.pdf

Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

xsltproc for xslt 1.0, but you are looking for xslt 2.0 , right ? -- luigi

Henning Hraban Ramm

6:28 a.m.

Am 2015-09-12 um 18:14 schrieb luigi scarso :

...

...
Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

xsltproc for xslt 1.0, but you are looking for xslt 2.0 , right ?

More like 3.0, I guess ;) No, the only extension from commercial Saxon that I would need are global variables. I didn’t yet dive into xsltproc’s (libxml2’s) documentation to see what might be possible. E.g. if I don’t markup all my paragraphs (because it clutters the source too much and is tedious), I get <break />s between the original paragraphs. I could convert these to HTML s like: 0 <![CDATA[]]> 1 xsl:apply-templates/ 0 Maybe there’s another solution, but I’m not comfortable enough in XSL to see it. Greetlings, Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

luigi scarso

14 Sep 14 Sep

3:12 a.m.

On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 2:28 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Am 2015-09-12 um 18:14 schrieb luigi scarso :

...
...
Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

xsltproc for xslt 1.0, but you are looking for xslt 2.0 , right ?

More like 3.0, I guess ;)

Saxonica has also an opensource java/c# xslt 2.0 http://www.saxonica.com/products/latest.xml (xslt 3.0 is still a draft right ?) -- luigi

Jan Tosovsky

12:09 p.m.

On 2015-09-12 Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Am 2015-09-12 um 18:14 schrieb luigi scarso :

...
Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

xsltproc for xslt 1.0, but you are looking for xslt 2.0 , right ?

No, the only extension from commercial Saxon ...

XSLT 1.0 is capable to handle anything (turing machine). XSLT 2.0 brings some syntactic sugar. XSLT 3.0 supports streaming. If you need 2.0 features, you can use Saxon-B 9.1.0.8 (free, but not maintained any more).

...

... I would need are global variables.

In pure XSLT any variable is fixed and its value cannot be changed. There are, however, different approaches how to accomplish this. Most common is defining template parameters and passing the proper values via them, see below.

...

E.g. if I don’t markup all my paragraphs (because it clutters the source too much and is tedious), I get <break />s between the original paragraphs. I could convert these to HTML s like:

0

<![CDATA[]]> 

1 xsl:apply-templates/ 0

Btw, istead of <![CDATA[]]> you can write

...

Maybe there’s another solution, but I’m not comfortable enough in XSL to see it.

Yes, functional programming requires different approaches, but I undestand it can be tough. As for me in early stages :-) Jan

Hans Hagen

12 Sep 12 Sep

8:25 a.m.

On 9/12/2015 2:14 PM, luigi scarso wrote:

...

xsltproc for xslt 1.0, but you are looking for xslt 2.0 , right ?

for regular transformations that's good enough Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

Aditya Mahajan

2:53 p.m.

On Sat, 12 Sep 2015, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

Why not just use your favorite programming language; most languages have a decent XML parsing library? Aditya

Henning Hraban Ramm

14 Sep 14 Sep

3:57 a.m.

Am 2015-09-13 um 02:53 schrieb Aditya Mahajan :

...

...
Do you know a good XSLT processor except Saxon? Its free version is just too limited.

Why not just use your favorite programming language; most languages have a decent XML parsing library?

Yes of course (mine is Python). I don’t know why I stick to shell scripts so much. It’s maybe just that "everyone and his dog" suggests XSLT to transform XML files. Greetlings, Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

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participants (6)

Aditya Mahajan
Hans Hagen
Henning Hraban Ramm
Jan Tosovsky
luigi scarso
Toby Miller