[gmt-dev] Text transformation

["Willink, Ed" <Ed.Willink@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All

So far in UMLX I have only needed to handle 'XML' to 'XML'
transformation, but at some point we need to 'text'. I think
this just requires an appropriate RHS concept that represents
a hierarchical text element. The composite text output is then
produced by serialising the textual values of the text hierarchy.

Hierarchical: so that a parent element can
	specify a text indentation level for its children
	specify prefix, separator and suffix text for its children

This is easily handled by text attributes.

A text element also needs to be able to incorporate external text
fragaments within its main body:

This could be

Unexpected ${event-type) within ${identity}

but it needs a powerful syntax.

This is hardly a new problem, though I note that the text side
of XSL, XSL-FO (Formatting Objects for PDF etc) was split off
as a separate spec and comnsequently has lagged dreadfully.

Are we similarly trying to provide a high level text formatting
for XSL-FO in the same way as UMLX provides a high level XSLT.?

Any suggestions, e.g. seen a good solution to this somewhere already?

	Regards
			
		Ed Willink

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