RE: [xsl] producing php with xslt

[Wendell Piez <wapiez at mulberrytech dot com>]

 From the XML point of view,

<?php ... ?>

(and its ilk) is certainly a processing instruction. If you are creating 
XML, you must perforce adopt the XML point of view.

If you are not creating XML but some "bespoke" format, use not <xsl:output 
method="xml"/> but <xsl:output method="text"/>. Then, of course, you will 
have to create all tags in your output by hand (including "XML tags" which 
you've said aren't really XML because you're not creating XML but something 
else).

If you have the string <?php ... ?> literally in your stylesheet, the 
parser takes it to be a processing instruction in the input document (the 
stylesheet): this is correct behavior. But you don't want a PI in your 
input; you want it in your output, which is where 
<xsl:processing-instruction> comes in.

The only exception to the rule that the <? ... ?> syntax in XML indicates a 
processing instruction is the XML declaration <?xml version="1.0"?>, which 
is a declaration that happens to be disguised as a processing instruction. 
(This is for backwards compatibility, so that XML will conform to SGML. 
Although this now seems like an archaic requirement, back in the early days 
it was a Very Good Thing, allowing XML technologies to leapfrog years of 
evolution.)

Regards,
Wendell

At 06:34 PM 7/23/01, Michael Fitzgerald wrote:
>It's not a PI, but it looks like a PI. You can use
>xsl:processing-instruction to produce the desired output, nonetheless.
>Otherwise, you could use CDATA sections, which might be compared to goto
>statements in C. The Kernighan and Ritchie description of goto is apt for
>CDATA sections: "infinitely-abusable." [1]
>
>-Mike


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