Thorsten Scherler wrote:
On Thu, 2005-09-15 at 11:52 +0100, Ross Gardler wrote:
....
As things are today it is not possible to have dependencies between
plugins. However, Daniel (from Cocoon) showed me how we can use a
feature of Cocoon blocks (wiring.xml) to manage ingheritance between
plugins.
In other words we can write a docbook plugin that extends the XHTML
plugin. It will use the docbook stylsheets to convert to XHTML and then
the XHTML plugin to convert to our internal format. I've not found a use
case strong enough for me to take the time to implement this yet,
however, if anyone wants to tackle it I'll be happy to pass on what
Daniel showed me.
Please show us, I would be very interested.
The "technical side" is really easy. What I haven't thought through yet
is how to define the dependencies within the plugins.xml file. That is,
if the docbook plugin depends on the XHTML plugin, how do we ensure that
the plugin install system downloads and installs both of them when we
only define the Docbook plugin.
Of course, the first instance could rely on the user adding the
dependencies.
For the techincal stuf take a look at wiring.xml [1]
This file describes the relationship (wiring) between three blocks
test1id, test2id and test3id.
test1id is connected to test2id
test3id is connected to test1id
Now look in the sitemaps for these blocks. In the sitemap for test1 you
will see a match like this:
<map:match pattern="test2">
<map:generate src="block:test2:/test"/>
<map:serialize/>
</map:match>
The "block:test2" protocol makes a request on test2 (note this is the
name of the connection identified in wiring.xml)
You can see other examples of the use of connections in the various
sitemaps. The best way to explore is actually to run the tests and look
at what happens with the various requests.
Daniel talked me through this stuf at Apachecon so if you have questions
try asking here first. I don;t guarentee I know the answers but I've not
played with this stuf yet so in exploring the answers I'll learn plenty.
Ross
[1]
http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/cocoon/trunk/src/test/org/apache/cocoon/test/components/blocks/wiring.xml?view=markup
