VXT: a visual approach to XML transformations

ABSTRACT

The domain of XML transformations is becoming more and more important as a result of the increasing number of applications adopting XML as their format for data exchange or representation. Most of the existing solutions for expressing XML transformations are textual languages, such as XSLT or DOM combined with a general-purpose programming language. Several tools build on top of these languages, providing a graphical environment. Transformations are however still specified in a textual way using the underlying language (often XSLT), thus requiring the user to learn the associated textual language.We believe that visual programming techniques are well-suited to representing XML structures and make the specification of transformations simpler. We present a visual programming language for the specification of XML transformations in an interactive environment, based on a zoomable user interface toolkit. Transformations can be run from the application or exported to two target languages: XSLT and Circus, a general-purpose structure transformation language designed by the second author and briefly introduced in this paper.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING
      I.7.2 Document Preparation
          Subjects: Markup languages

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING
      I.7.2 Document Preparation
          Subjects: Languages and systems; Multi/mixed media
          Nouns: XML

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Languages

Keywords:
XML transformations, XSLT, circus, visual programming languages, zoomable user interfaces