Can anyone please tell me why I received this message? There doesn't seem to be anything in the header information to tell me who sent it and he/she certainly seems either irritated, has a hair up their yingyang, or don't really know what they're doing in the first place. In any case, why would a message like this be coming to me? Anybody recognize it? thanks, Matthew L. Avizinis <mailto:mla@;gleim.com> Gleim Publications, Inc. 4201 NW 95th Blvd. Gainesville, FL 32606 (352)-375-0772 www.gleim.com <http://www.gleim.com>
> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:fop-dev-return-17272-mla=gleim.com@;xml.apache.org] > Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 5:05 AM > Subject: Fopping 1-12 to Jan-Dec > > > All I wanted to do was convert a month number 1-12 to month name. > > I have the Beginning XSLT Wrox book, and Kay's XSLT 2nd Ed. > > I'm enthused about learning this stuff, and yet there > are some major turnoffs being encountered. > > Generating documents with FOP is what I'm trying to > do. I know TeX, so the XSL:FO is not too strange. > I have the ORA book for XSL:FO. > > I've received an XLST-FO source to maintain, and when I > saw the enumerated if-test sequence to choose a month > name from 1-12, I thought, "There's got to be a shorter > way." > > Page 95 of Kay's book: > > <xsl:variable name="months"> > <January/><February/><March/><April/><May/><June/><July/> > <August/><September/><October/><November/><December/> > </xsl:variable> > > <xsl:value-of select="name($months/*[position()=2])" /> > > I've hard-coded February in this example. > Result: [ERROR] No flow found for region-body in page-master 'first' > > The code is in the header part of the document-code, in a > '<fo:static-content...>'. But I tried in a non-static flow, > and tried a template version. Nogo. > > <Polemic> > > I'd like to say how utterly disgusted I am at the error messages > coming out of my XSLT (FOP) compiles/transformations. > > Kay's book erroneously shows that last line above as: > > <xsl:value-of select="name($months/*[position()=$mm" /> > > FYI, his Wrox book's errata page is 404. > > When I have the erroneous line in the source, I get over 800 > lines of error messages. > > What, did a 12-yo kid write XSLT-FOP? > > For bleep's sake get a hold of a professional compiler writer > and put in the necessary structures for "normal" error msgs. > > Can you imagine the outcry if GNU's gcc did the same thing > when one line of code had a syntax error? > > Apparently I have to type in a few lines of code and see if > it compiles before entering more code, because otherwise there's > no way to figure out what's wrong! As in, 'The error messages > are so bad I have to resort to commenting out code just to have > a freakin' clue as to where I went wrong.' > > What kind of way to develop is that? > > Yes, I recognize this as Java-style "throwing an exception", or > in this case, "FOPException()." Not an excuse. > > No, I am not volunteering my time, and I can't code Java. > > Recently I came up to speed on perl, compiled 8.0 on my > Sun SPARC Solaris 8 boxen, and found perl even has a > verbose error message mode that will give you a paragraph > or two on what the error msg (always for a given line#) > might be about and how to fix. Sometimes FOP doesn't even > cough up a line number. > > FOP's non-existent implementation of error reporting is > wasting a lot of programmer time and no doubt retards its use. > > It should be a top priority for upgrading. > > </Polemic> > > A newbie hunting and pecking through books and Google results... > > I tried xmlns:date="http://exslt.org/dates-and-times";, but > that URL is 404. (I emailed Tennison, and also Wrox about > their 404.) > > So, FOP doesn't have EXSLT functions? > > I downloaded date.zip from exslt.org and added it to the > stylesheet declaration, and an 'xsl:import'. > > Now it says it can't find a string padding function. > > Hunt...okay, downloaded and unzipped the 'str.zip' deal. > > Updated the source...damn, same error. > > Apparently the 'date' routines are referring to the 'str' routines > underneath the 'date' subdir 'functions.' > > Okay, I tar the 'str' functions directory to overlay the 'date' one. > > Nogo. Gave up this approach. > > > Hmmm, the web pages say the newest 'xalan' has EXSLT built-in. > Can I load its jars into the FOP lib directory and get them? > > http://xml.apache.org/fop/relnotes.html > FOP 0.20.4 > * FOP should now work with any JAXP1.1 compliant parser/transformer. > It has been successfully tested with Xerces/Xalan, Saxon and JDK1.4 > (which includes Crimson and Xalan). > * The following JARs have been updated: Xerces to version 2.0.1, > Xalan to version 2.3.1 and Batik to version 1.5beta2. > > Maybe? > > Downloading 'xalan-j_2_4_0-bin.tar.gz' from > http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/index.html. > > Gunzip, no problem. But the untar... > > x > xalan-j_2_4_0/docs/apidocs/org/apache/xalan/transformer/class-use/ > TransformerImpl.html, 55055 bytes, 108 tape blocks > tar: directory checksum error > > Just fabulous. > > I successfully do the zip version, backup FOP/lib, delete x*, > move in xalan's jars.... > > [ERROR] null > > Tweak...tweak... > > java.lang.NullPointerException > > I'm stuck. Have I mentioned: > > All I wanted to do was convert a month number 1-12 to month name. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
