CERN Accelerating science

Several new tools related to XML have become available lately. I have installed a few that are Java-based at CERN. I plan to add new interesting XML-related applications as they are developed. Please send your suggestions for adding such packages to the author.

Below you find the packages that have been added recently. For each of them there is a brief description. More information is available in the documentation.

• xerces Free source validating XML parser distributed by the Apache Project (present version 1.0.3). Documentation is in /usr/local/doc/JAVA/xerces/1.0.3/html, the API is defined in /afs/.cern.ch/asis/src/JAVA/xerces-1.0.3/apiDocs/index.html.

  The possible command parameters are discovered by just typing the xerces command. Examples of using xerces are

  xerces -saxcount -v invitationfr.xml
  invitationfr.xml: 2003 ms 
   (14 elems, 0 attrs, 18 spaces, 384 chars)
  xerces -saxcount invitationfr.xml
  invitationfr.xml: 1693 ms 
   (14 elems, 0 attrs, 18 spaces, 384 chars)
  

  The first version with the -v switch verifies the file and counts the elements, while the version without that switch merely checks the file for well-formedness.

• xalan Free source XSL parser distributed by the Apache Project (present version 0.20). Documentation is in /usr/local/doc/JAVA/xalan/0.20.0/overview.html, the API is defined in /usr/local/doc/JAVA/xalan/0.20.0/apidocs/index.html.

  A transformation of an XML file by an XSL stylesheet is obtained as follows:

  xalan invitationfr.xml invlat1fr.xsl a.tex
   
  ========= Parsing file:invlat1fr.xsl ==========
  Parse of file:invlat1fr.xsl took 3406 milliseconds
  ========= Parsing invitationfr.xml ==========
  Parse of invitationfr.xml took 439 milliseconds
  =============================
  Transforming...
  transform took 494 milliseconds
  XSLProcessor: done
  

• saxonxsl Michael Kay's XSL parser. Documentation is in /usr/local/doc/JAVA/saxon/5.2/index.html, the API definitions can be reached from that page.

  A transformation of an XML file by an XSL stylesheet is obtained as follows:

  saxonxsl -t invitationfr.xml invlat1fr.xsl > a.tex
  SAXON from Michael Kay of ICL
  Version 5.2
  Elapsed time: 2235 milliseconds
  

• oraxsl Oracle's XSL parser (oraxml is the corresponding XML parser). A Readme file is at file:/usr/local/doc/JAVA/oraxmlxsl/2.0.2.7/html/readme.html, examples are in the directory /usr/local/doc/JAVA/oraxmlxsl/2.0.2.7/sample/, while the API definitions are at file:/usr/local/doc/JAVA/oraxmlxsl/2.0.2.7/html/API_users_guide.html.

  A transformation of an XML file by an XSL stylesheet is obtained as follows:

  oraxsl -v invitationfr.xml invlat1fr.xsl a.tex
  1 XML document will be transformed using XSLT stylesheet 
  specified in invlat1fr.xsl with 1 thread
  Parsing file invlat1fr.xsl
  Parsing file invitationfr.xml
  Transforming XML document specified in invitationfr.xml
  

• fop Open source XSL formatting object to PDF convertor developed by the Apache Project. Some documentation is available in the directory /usr/local/doc/JAVA/fop/0.12.1/, but most of the time you will just type a command like the following to obtain a PDF file from and XML file using an XSL stylesheet that transform your XML element into XSL FO objects.

  fop invitation.xml invfo1.xsl  a.pdf
  FOP 0.12.1
  using SAX parser org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser
  using renderer org.apache.fop.render.pdf.PDFRenderer
  using element mapping org.apache.fop.fo.StandardElementMapping
  using element mapping org.apache.fop.svg.SVGElementMapping
  building formatting object tree
  setting up fonts
  formatting FOs into areas
   [1]
  rendering areas to PDF
  writing out PDF
  

  The PDF file a.pdf can be viewed with acroread and printed if needed.

• DocBook The latest DocBook SGML DTD and associated DSSSL stylesheets, and the corresponding XML DTD version with its associated XSL stylesheets are made available in the directories /usr/local/share/docbooksgml, /usr/local/share/docbookdsssl, /usr/local/share/docbookxml, and /usr/local/share/docbookxsl, respectively.

A series of four lectures on XML in the framework of the Academic Training Program is planned for Monday 22nd to Thursday 25th of May.