Re: [xml] XPath queries on document fragments without a document

[Sean Chittenden <sean chittenden org>]

> > > > Hey, fwiw, if anyone's interested in a libxml/libxslt bindings for
> > > > Ruby, let me know.  They're adhering to the C API so far but aren't
> > > > finished and should be pretty easy to use.  -sc
> > >
> > >   Hum, I love to heard about bindings for new language, but I'm
> > > wondering how this relates to the existing Ruby bindings at :
> > >     http://www.rubycolor.org/arc/redist/
> > > as pointed from:
> > >    http://xmlsoft.org/python.html
> > >
> > >   Are the old ones unusable, or unmaintained ?
> >
> > Suuuuuuper old and are by and large unmaintained.  I've contacted the
> > old author 'cause I based some of my work off of it (worked as a
> > tutorial to libxml/libxslt for me, but has basically been rewritten).
> > The author said he had an itch and scratched it.
> >
> > > Also do you plan to provide XSLT extensions using Ruby (like Matt
> > > Sergeant did with the latest XML::LibXSLT release) ?
> >
> > You bet!  I'm actually out to compete with AxKit here in a month or
> > two and think I can beat their performance #'s.  :~) I'm a perl->ruby
> > convert and want to offer something superior to Perl.  Other than an
> > way of dynamically creating pages via XML/XSLT, the Ruby bindings for
> > libxml/libxslt are also the basis for rubynet, Ruby's CPAN.
>
> wow!! very cool. thanks for your work. I am a big Ruby fan and I
> think Ruby really neads a fast xml api. there is REXML which is very
> cool but sometimes something faster (C based) would be good.  and
> there was no complety xslt module for Ruby too.

The libxslt module has a super simple interface at the moment, but it
works well enough for me to do what I've needed it to up till
recently.  As soon as I get over these memory woes in ruby-libxml I'll
finish flushing out the libxslt interface.  The libxslt stuff should
be pretty easy to finish up compared to libxml.

> you write you want to compete with Axkit.
> does that mean there will be something like Axkit for Ruby based on libmxl?
> include XSP and all the stuff??
> just curious.

YES!  I'm working on Ruby object->XML->Ruby object.  Think of it as an
XML version of DRb.  I love DRb and think it's wonderful for
applications that are all running the same version of Ruby, but if you
need to persist complex data structures across multiple versions of
ruby or want an upgrade path from an older version of ruby to a newer
version, you're SOL at the moment.  Anyway, this is something I'm
planning on over coming here shortly.

Another bit that I'm hopefully going to start work on here shortly is
a set of UDDI/WSDL libraries that are going to be based on this libxml
work.  I'd like to get to the point where there's a standardized way
of registering ruby services with a this UDDI server.  Making
REST/SOAP applications plug and play would rock, IMHO.

Pretty much all of my projects revolve around libxml actually.
rubynet, rubydoc, and my mod_ruby work are all libxml/libxslt
dependent.

> anyway, libxml bindins for Ruby will make this great language even
> more popular.

Ruby > C > Lisp > 0 > poo > Perl > Java

::grin:: That's the goal.  I'm actually going to be working with a few
other folk in the ruby community to help support the XML BDB and
possibly in integrating libxml as the base for XML support in
PostgreSQL since ruby is available as a PL language.  Stay tuned.  -sc

-- 
Sean Chittenden