> > Is there some way of doing an "if-not-exists" or an "else" clause for
> > the if variants? For now I have settled with a select/case construct
> > naming all possible values and defaulting to an ex:content, as above,
> > but it's not very pretty:
> >
> >   <span ex:select=".end">
> >     <span ex:case="2006" ex:content=".end"></span>
> >     ...
> >     <span ex:case="1997" ex:content=".end"></span>
> >     <span ex:content="'present'"></span>
> >   </span>
>
> Do you have a suggestion for how an "else" clause would look like in html?

Nothing better than allowing for the negation of any if test, at worst
via an ex:not attribute, but preferably via a not() function of the
test expression (or an if-not-exists, in the former case).

I just stumbled on an even better example of where something like this
is needed; items which have a title and an optional url, where you
want to render the title as a link when posible.

> > I would like to have (the option of) a "field not present" marker,
> > getting some predefined value in the facet list, i e the lack of an
> > end year above being listed as "present". Is it possible already via
> > the type system or something else I've overlooked?
>
> No, that's not possible yet. Do you want that default to show up in both
> the facet and lens templates?

The worst kind of feedback, I'm afraid; either mode of operation has
useful aspects to it. For this data set it would be helpful having
both (as I would not have to do if/else blocks for those facets).

My gut feeling suggests there probably are use cases where a lens
would need to be able to discern the cases "field not present" from
"predefined not-present value inserted" from one another, though. But
perhaps it's not an either/or scenario?

> > Also, having the expressive power of the testing language in the case
> > constructs would be nice, perhaps allowing constructs like those I
> > intuited first, like
> >
> >   <span ex:select=".end">
> >     <span ex:case="&lt; 2000" ex:content=".end"></span>
> >     <span ex:case="= undefined" ex:content="'present'"></span>
> >   </span>
>
> Hmm, I was afraid of making a full programming language... :)

Don't feel (too) pressured to. ;-)

A generic way of integrating user provided custom javascript functions
for reformatting or doing your own tests / filters would probably be
more  useful than a slightly extended query language. But maybe (or
perhaps rather "probably") that is already there if you just grok
Exhibit.Functions, Exhibit.Expression._operators and friends?

-- 
 / Johan Sundström, http://ecmanaut.blogspot.com/

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