Dual Syntax for XML Languages

Claus Brabrand; Anders Møller; Michael Ignatieff Schwartzbach

doi:10.1016/j.is.2008.01.006

Dual Syntax for XML Languages

Claus Brabrand, Anders Møller, Michael Ignatieff Schwartzbach

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

XML is successful as a machine processable data interchange format, but it is often too verbose for human use. For this reason, many XML languages permit an alternative more legible non-XML syntax. XSLT stylesheets are often used to convert from the XML syntax to the alternative syntax; however, such transformations are not reversible since no general tool exists to automatically parse the alternative syntax back into XML.

We present XSugar, which makes it possible to manage dual syntax for XML languages. An XSugar specification is built around a context-free grammar that unifies the two syntaxes of a language. Given such a specification, the XSugar tool can translate from alternative syntax to XML and vice versa. Moreover, the tool statically checks that the transformations are reversible and that all XML documents generated from the alternative syntax are valid according to a given XML schema.

Original language	English
Journal	Information Systems
Volume	33
Issue	4
Pages (from-to)	385-406
Number of pages	21
ISSN	0306-4379
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2008.01.006
Publication status	Published - 2008

Keywords

XML transformation
Non-XML syntax
Reversible
Bidirectional
context-free grammars

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10.1016/j.is.2008.01.006

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title = "Dual Syntax for XML Languages",

abstract = "XML is successful as a machine processable data interchange format, but it is often too verbose for human use. For this reason, many XML languages permit an alternative more legible non-XML syntax. XSLT stylesheets are often used to convert from the XML syntax to the alternative syntax; however, such transformations are not reversible since no general tool exists to automatically parse the alternative syntax back into XML.We present XSugar, which makes it possible to manage dual syntax for XML languages. An XSugar specification is built around a context-free grammar that unifies the two syntaxes of a language. Given such a specification, the XSugar tool can translate from alternative syntax to XML and vice versa. Moreover, the tool statically checks that the transformations are reversible and that all XML documents generated from the alternative syntax are valid according to a given XML schema.",

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AU - Møller, Anders

AU - Schwartzbach, Michael Ignatieff

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AB - XML is successful as a machine processable data interchange format, but it is often too verbose for human use. For this reason, many XML languages permit an alternative more legible non-XML syntax. XSLT stylesheets are often used to convert from the XML syntax to the alternative syntax; however, such transformations are not reversible since no general tool exists to automatically parse the alternative syntax back into XML.We present XSugar, which makes it possible to manage dual syntax for XML languages. An XSugar specification is built around a context-free grammar that unifies the two syntaxes of a language. Given such a specification, the XSugar tool can translate from alternative syntax to XML and vice versa. Moreover, the tool statically checks that the transformations are reversible and that all XML documents generated from the alternative syntax are valid according to a given XML schema.

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KW - Reversible

KW - Bidirectional

KW - kontekstfrie grammatikker

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KW - Non-XML syntax

KW - Reversible

KW - Bidirectional

KW - context-free grammars

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Dual Syntax for XML Languages

Abstract

Keywords

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