From: Jim Fuller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I like the idea that Ant may understand what to do with other
external namespaces like such as proposed with the html: example.
And generally agree with how it is proposed how Ant deals with
namespaces it 'knows' about.
I am going to become picky here because I think it is important
to understand the small details in this conversation.
There are several ways to understand what it means for ANT to "know
about" a namespace:
1) ANT knows about any namespace declaration that there is in your
buildfile. This may not seem too interesting.
2) ANT gives a special meaning at namespaces declared using
"antlib:..." URLs. Which it uses to automatically load libraries.
3) ANT knows about tasks and types declared inside some URI
(any URI) using <typedef uri="..."> or <taskdef uri="...">.
Given the above, what do you mean by namespaces "ANT does not know"
about? Given (3) ANT cannot just ignore it, since it may be a typo of
some sort. There is not such a thing as an ignorable
namespace (unless we define a way to tell to ANT to ignore it).
The main point of my example is that instead of continually
expanding the Ant schema to accommodate other meta data that is
non-build specific, to allow non-ant specific namespaced
elements/attributes (meta
data) to be allowed inside an ant build document.
Perhaps these namespaces can bind to another java class ( as with
binding java functions in XSLT ) which ultimately determine how they
are processed within an Ant context...perhaps not.... though I can
see this being useful in consistently bringing in external scripting
languages to Ant ( though this is not critical to my argument ).
I see two ways here:
1) The already mentioned task Or type
<comment> or better <ignore> in which you may be able to include any
XML you like. And hence keep anotations away boxed-off.
<ant:ignore>
<rdf:x xmlns:rdf="....">...</rdf:x>
</ant:ignore>
2) Alternatively, one could think of using XML processing-instructions
to tell ANT that some particular namespace should be ignored by ANT.
<?ant-ignore uri="...."?>
<rdf:x xmlns:rdf="....">...</rdf:x>
The different approaches may produce quite different functionality,
while
in (1) all foreign URIs segregated appart from the rest of the ANT
lingo, on (2) we could actually intermix them freely:
<?ant-ignore uri="...."?>
<project ... xmlns:rdf="....">
<rdf:x >...</rdf:x>
<target name="xyz" rdf:description="This is my description">
<copy ....>
<rdf:comment>This is a comment inside the code</rdf:comment>
<fileset ..../>
</copy>
</target>
</project>
Which would produce a very powerful intermingling capability,
but it may be too powerful (i.e., too confising for the uninitiated).
(1) should be trivial to do in 1.7, (2) would require changes
in ProjectHelper to implement the processing-instruction.
A few use cases;
Eventually perhaps there will be a standard method of annotating xml
documents, I use the RDF/Dublin core initiative but perhaps someone
would want to use an XHTML custom module embedded in Ant
<description/> elements. There is a real need for versioning Ant xml
files
Fine.
Perhaps Ant will be required during the course of a build sensitive
pieces of information, why not intermix XML Encryption / Signature
which could be expanded when/if securely during the build process ?
This could range to simple username/passwords to embedding
public/private keys etc.... .
This I do not buy (yet). Certaintly you can resolve this by having
the sensitive info in an encripted file and having a task
that loads the information during the execution of the build.
You can write the task to use whatever technology you want it to use.
It's in this way that we can provide a 'dense' xml document packed
with all the information for a build, at the same time leveraging
external xml vocabularies instead of cooking their own variant every
time the need pops up. At some point we shall see the boundaries
between file-based documents blurring with the usage of storing such
XML in XML DB repositories. XML namespaces will become the true
boundary between xml vocabularies instead of a physical boundary
imposed by our current usage of files and directories. Perhaps this
is something to think about for Ant 2.0.
I think an aproach like (2) could give the correct balance
on your direction.
Cheers, jim
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Reilly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 22
December 2003 13:53
To: Ant Developers List
Subject: Re: a comment about xml namespace
This is what I (think I) originally proposed, but did
not articulate it correctly.
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=ant-dev&m=105240500519029&w=2
Peter
Jim Fuller wrote:
Consider the following;
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Demonstrate namespace options" default="demo">
<RDF:RDF xmlns:RDF="http://www.w3c.org/RDF/";
xmlns:DC="http://purl.org/RDF/DC/";>
<RDF:Description
RDF:HREF="http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core_elements";
DC:Title="namespace build"
DC:Creator="Jim Fuller"
DC:Subject="xml namespaces"
DC:Description="Contains Ant artifacts for building"
DC:Publisher="Webcomposite s.r.o." DC:Format="text/html"
DC:Type="Technical Report" DC:Language="en"
DC:Date="12/22/2003"/>
</RDF:RDF>
<description>intermixing of namespaces</description>
<target name="demo" description="build entry point">
<echo message="successful build"/>
</target>
</project>
XML Namespaces was initially created to avoid collision within
documents
that have multiple xml vocabularies.
Ant seems to assume by default that all namespaces have
something to do
with build processing...is their any convention planned for
having Ant
ignore specific namespace elements...or more usefully all
namespaces that have no Ant processing associated with it ?
For instance, the above example maybe generated by a
sophisticated XML
editor that uses Dublin Core and RDF as a method of tracking versions
of
the build.xml file. This is a simple use case, there are other more
important use cases involving xml db repositories.
Regards, Jim Fuller
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----Jim Fuller Technical Architect WebComposite s.r.o.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/http://www.ruminate.co.uk
Co-Author ISBN 1861007213 Professional PHP4 XML
Co-Author ISBN 1861008074 Professional PHP Web Services Technical
Reviewer 'Beginning XSLT', 'Beginning Databases', 'XML
Antipatterns' and various other xml / web service books
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