<ignorance-exemption-clause>As far as I am aware</ignorance-exemption-clause>, once any generation, transformation or serialization stage is in progress, it is not possible to backtrack out of it and continue processing in the sitemap.
This means that, if you have a number of alternative matches which should apply depending upon a number of conditions, those conditions need to be checked using matchers, selectors or actions, prior to generation etc. However, it is very common to have a generation process which involves database access, where the failure of the database selection is effectively the basis upon which to decide to choose a different match in the sitemap. e.g. if there's an entry in database A for this request, display it, otherwise display something from database B or a static page. This means, that it is necessary to produce an additional matcher, selector or action that will perform the required database selection and choose the match accordingly, prior to actually generating the content based upon a costly reapplication of the same or similar database access. >>> HOWEVER... This will double the number of database accesses (in a non-cached setup), and increase them way beyond that in a setup where database accesses are cached using the standard pipeline caching mechanisms (because these mechanisms don't easily allow actions, matchers or selectors to benefit from the cached 'decision'). >>> THEREFORE... It would be really useful if there was a provision in the generator API contract to allow a match to be rejected based on some aspect of the generation response. Given that, as soon as a generator starts issuing SAX events, a backtrack becomes practically impossible, such a contract would presumably be tied to the generator generating nothing. What do others think about this? Stuart. Public Key - 1024D/88DD65AF 2001-11-23 Stuart Roebuck (Adolos) Key fingerprint = 89D9 E405 F8B1 9B22 0FA2 F2C1 9E57 5AB1 88DD 65AF ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stuart Roebuck [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems Architect Java, XML, MacOS X, XP, etc. ADOLOS <http://www.adolos.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]