On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, Dmitri Plotnikov wrote:
> Even with this simplistic implementation, I was able to use XPaths with all
> JSPTL tags.
>
> Very exciting!
Yes, XPath has come up in JSPTL Expert-Group discussions as a potential
expression language to support in JSPTL. It's not universally accepted as
the best choice for this purpose, but it's definitely one of the prominent
candidates.
> Question: if we were to add JXPath as yet another expression language
> to JSPTL, where would the source code belong? I don't think we should
> introduce dependencies between the JSPTL and JXPath projects. JXPath
> is in commons; it should not depend on anything except commons itself
> as commons is supposed to be the foundation for the whole project.
> OTOH, JSPTL is becoming a standard, therefore it should be easily
> separable from the rest of Jakarta. Or are these assumptions
> incorrect?
My take on this, unofficially, is that the JSPTL standard would specify a
particular language, which might be a subset of or reference to XPath.
The JSPTL reference implementation could then use JXPath if JXPath ends up
being suitable as a full or partial implementation of the JSPTL
specification's expression language.
The only dependencies, in other words, will be at the reference-
implementation level. To my understanding, this is fine assuming that the
end result is convenient for end users and fully implements the standard.
But there are folks more knowledgeable about JCP processes and who can
speak more authoritatively on the matter. This is just my current,
personal understanding.
Shawn Bayern
(JSPTL reference-implementation lead)
