Java and XSLT

Java, XSLT, and WML

Unless a web application is limited to a corporate intranet, it must be designed to support a wide variety of device types. As the upcoming examples will demonstrate, wireless devices are far less consistent than web browsers. This amplifies the need for the clean separation between data and presentation that XML and XSLT offer, because many different presentation styles may be needed to take advantage of specific devices. Java servlets are used to tie everything together, detecting the type of client device and driving the XSLT transformation process.

A WML Example

WML is a relatively new XML-based markup language specifically designed for wireless devices. As such, it is compact, easy to parse, and optimized for small displays. WML is the product of the WAP Forum, an association consisting of over 500 member companies that defines specifications for wireless devices. You can learn more about WML by downloading the specification from http://www.wapforum.org or by reading Learning WML and WMLScript by Martin Frost (O’Reilly).

First of all, WML is an XML-based markup language.^[53] This means that, unlike HTML, all WML documents must be well-formed and valid. For instance, all tags must be lowercase and nested properly, and attribute values must be quoted. Example 10-1 lists a WML document.

Example 10-1. A very simple WML page

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml"> ...