There is a new release of the Spring XML Databases
Framework which on top of some bug fixes and improvements to XML Database
access includes 2 new features which work independently of the XML Database
access but provide complementry features.
There is also now extensive reference documentation (but
not enough examples) at http://springxmldb.sourceforge.net/
This release can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/springxmldb/
SPXForms
The SPXForms implementation allows for binding of form
elements to XML documents in a similar way to Spring's Form Controllers work.
An SPXForm controller can be used to load an XML document, edit it on a form
and have the submission rebound to the XML document before validating and
processing.
SPXForms is an XForms-like (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/)
implementation. It is very difficult to build a fully compliant XForms engine
using serverside technology as the original specification was designed to be
implemented as a clientside application. Currently serverside XForms
implementations of some form exist at Chiba
( http://chiba.sourceforge.net/
)and OXF ( http://www.orbeon.com/
). SPXForms currently only supports a small subset of XForms functionality.
SPXForms consists of three main elements.
- A serverside binding framework. Similar to the Spring
binding framework, this binds request parameters to the command object XML
document and also runs xforms actions submited to the serverside.
- A base AbstractSpXFormsController which should be
extended to create Form Controllers for processing XML documents.
- A JSP tag library for binding form elements to the XML
document and for XForms tags such as triggers, actions, groups, repeats and
submits.
Schematron Validator
The SPX framework includes validating methods for
validating data in XML documents. This uses the Spring Validator interface
which can be used to validate XML models independently but integrates with the
SPXForms MVC layer for validating XML form input.
The class
uk.co.lakesidetech.spxforms.validation.schematron.SchematronValidator is an
implementation of the Spring Validator interface. The schematron validator can
be used by specifiying the resource property schematronResource to point to the
XML definition file of the schematron. Within the schematron file are a serious
of patterns, rules with asserts and reports.
Simply the validator will check all the rules given an
xpath context in the document. Within the rules are either asserts or reports
which have xpath tests. If the test evaluates to false on a assert an error is
added with the assert message (within the assert element), if a test evaluates
to true on a report then an error is added with the report message (within the
report element). The test can also just attempt to evaluate a value, if the
value is not found it evaluates to false. The message can either be the key to
text in a messages file or just the actual default text message to use. The
field name used for the error object is the context of the rule.
XML database access
changes
- Fixed some minor bugs
- added support for file dates in eXist and Xindice
- added support for getting metadata in Xindice
Thanks for your time.
Stuart
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