eXist

Chapter 10. Other XML Technologies

Up to here we have talked mainly about eXist combined with XQuery, with only little tidbits on other technologies. But eXist is a full-blown XML application platform and has lots of interesting and useful other technologies on board. One of its strengths is the ability to mix and match different approaches, using the right technology for the right problem.

This chapter delves into technologies such as XSLT, XSL:FO, XInclude, XML Validation, Collations, and XForms and explains how to use them in eXist.

Note

We do not explain the technologies themselves; that is to say, this chapter does not contain crash courses on XSLT, XInclude, XForms, and so on. Rather, we assume that if you need one of the aforementioned technologies, you already know how to use it (or are able to learn how elsewhere). Only the relationship with eXist is explained. If you need more information about the technologies themselves, please refer to Additional Resources.

A notable missing technology in this chapter is XProc. Although eXist does contain some support for using XProc pipelines, this is still rather experimental and evolving. There is a connector to the open source XProc processor XML Calabash; see xmlcalabash.

Note

As of early 2014, there is an XProc module under development, but this will not run on eXist v2.1. You’ll need to wait for v2.2 (or use the development branch from GitHub) to be able to use it.

XSLT

XQuery is a powerful language, but there are problems that can be ...