[xquery-talk] Stop Conversion of Character Entities

Betty Harvey harvey at eccnet.com
Tue Feb 21 15:20:10 PST 2012 

Thanks Michael!

This is what I was afraid of. My use-case is the ability to create a
number of Excel spreadsheets (currently 156 and over time over a 1000)
that users can run on-demand.

Everything is working beautifully except for this nagging linefeed problem.
Ultimately, I think they can live with it because they are getting a lot
of functionality and visibility into the data that they didn't have
before.

I am going to ask the same question on the MarkLogic list just in case
MarkLogic has a solution for this problem.

Thanks again everyone for the suggestions - I will write back if I ever
find a solution|-)!

Betty

> There's no equivalent in XQuery to XSLT's d-o-e. Which is probably a
> good thing; d-o-e has caused no end of problems over the years; it
> breaks the architectural boundary between the transformer and serializer
> in a way that inevitably leads to grief. There are cases where it's
> needed - usually cases like this one, where it appears a receiving
> application is making distinctions between two lexical representations
> of the same data model that no self-respecting XML application should
> make.
>
> I think the correct workaround for this kind of problem is to output
> something like a processing-instruction <?x10?> and then do
> post-processing of the serialized output (or customization of the
> serializer pipeline) to turn this into what the application requires.
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>
>
> On 21/02/2012 21:01, Betty Harvey wrote:
>> Yes Excel XML 2003 and 2007 understands character entities because it
>> understands XML
>>
>> Converting to CSV wouldn't solve the problem of getting a list in a
>> single
>> cell.
>>
>> Also, I am doing some fancy formatting in the Excel:
>>
>> 1.  Header Rows with different fonts and colors
>> 2.  Freeze panes
>> 3.  Filtering on columns turned on.
>> 4.  Different fonts (colors, bold, italics)
>> 4.  Multiple worksheets
>>
>> Excel is a little persnickety and I have solved all of the above.  In
>> XSLT
>> I have also solved above, as well as having lists in a single cell
>> because
>> of the<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">  command.   In XSLT I
>> would:
>>
>> <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&</xsl:text>#10;
>>
>> I could always let it wrapped but it looks messy and isn't pleasing to
>> the
>> eyes of the users using the reports I am generating.
>>
>> I can't find an equivalent in XQuery.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Betty
>>
>>> OK Back to the beginning
>>>
>>> First off I didnt know Excel understood XML character entities ...but
>>> trusting you
>>> what does this give you
>>>
>>>
>>> <cell><data>hello&#10;big&#10;world</data></cell>
>>>
>>> Alternatively have you thought of converting to CSV instead and let
>>> Excel
>>> read that ?
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>> David A. Lee
>>> dlee at calldei.com
>>> http://www.xmlsh.org
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Betty Harvey [mailto:harvey at eccnet.com]
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 3:44 PM
>>>> To: David Lee
>>>> Cc: Andrew Welch; xquery-discuss; Mike Sokolov
>>>> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] Stop Conversion of Character Entities
>>>>
>>>> This is what I getting (simplified) in the output -- the linefeeds are
>>>> being created:
>>>>
>>>> <cell><data>hello
>>>> big
>>>> world</data></cell>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What I want is:
>>>>
>>>> <cell><data>hello
big
world</data></cell>
>>>>
>>>> When the Excel 2003 file is opened in Excel the cell is coming out:
>>>>
>>>> hello big world
>>>>
>>>> What I want it displayed in list form:
>>>>
>>>> hello
>>>> big
>>>> world
>>>>
>>>> Excel doesn't recognize actual linefeeds as linefeeds in a cell -- it
>>>> requires the actual character entity
>>>>
>>>> Betty
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I guess Im confused as to what your problem is.
>>>>> Here is ML code I just ran
>>>>>
>>>>> <p>hello world
</p>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Result:
>>>>>
>>>>> <p>hello world
>>>>> </p>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So my next question is ... how are you printing the result of a
>>>> MarkLogic
>>>>> XQuery output ?  It seems likely the problem is in your serialization
>>>> code
>>>>> not ML itself
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>>> David A. Lee
>>>>> dlee at calldei.com
>>>>> http://www.xmlsh.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: talk-bounces at x-query.com [mailto:talk-bounces at x-query.com] On
>>>>>> Behalf Of Betty Harvey
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 3:24 PM
>>>>>> To: Andrew Welch
>>>>>> Cc: xquery-discuss; Mike Sokolov
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] Stop Conversion of Character Entities
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I guess I should have said MarkLogic is the XQuery engine.  I
>>>>>> thought
>>>>>> there might be generic solution.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Betty
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have tried just about every trick I can think of with no
>>>> success.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> declare namespace saxon="http://saxon.sf.net/";
>>>>>>> declare option saxon:output "method=text";
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 'a&#10; b'
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> returns
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> a
 b
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Andrew Welch
>>>>>>> http://andrewjwelch.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
>>>>>> Betty Harvey                         | Phone:  410-787-9200  FAX:
>>>> 9830
>>>>>> Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
>>>>>> harvey at eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
>>>>>> URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
>>>>>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
>>>>>> Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> talk at x-query.com
>>>>>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> talk at x-query.com
>>>>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
>>>> Betty Harvey                         | Phone:  410-787-9200  FAX: 9830
>>>> Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
>>>> harvey at eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
>>>> URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
>>>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
>>>> Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)
>>>
>>>
>>
>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
>> Betty Harvey                         | Phone:  410-787-9200  FAX: 9830
>> Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
>> harvey at eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
>> URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
>> /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
>> Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk at x-query.com
>> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk at x-query.com
> http://x-query.com/mailman/listinfo/talk
>


/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Betty Harvey                         | Phone:  410-787-9200  FAX: 9830
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
harvey at eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
Member of XML Guild (www.xmlguild.org)

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