Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic Xtatic: Native XML processing for C#
started 10/8/2002; 11:43:06 PM - last post 10/9/2002; 8:38:36 AM
jon fernquest - Xtatic: Native XML processing for C#  blueArrow
10/8/2002; 11:43:06 PM (reads: 1284, responses: 1)
Xtatic: Native XML processing for C#
Xtatic is a C# extension that further develops the ideas of XDuce, "a statically typed analog of XSLT" for writing tree transformers. (XDuce influenced the design of XQuery's type system.) In Xtatic "XML trees become built-in values of the language." Leaves can be any host language object. Xtatic has a tiny core calculus based on Featherweight Java [1, 2, 3, 4] and C# is modelled with a "functional core" that omits assignment. Regular expression types are used in a pattern matching mechanism that "includes all of ML-style 'algebraic pattern matching' as a special case" and includes a statically typed "tree­ grep" capability. Patterns are "just regular expression types decorated with variable bindings." An example of a regular expression type is: "XML<person[name[String],(email [String]|tel[String])*]>" which describes trees "containing a name followed by arbitrarily many email addresses and telephone numbers."

"Native" XML types vs. embeddings... There have been "many proposals for embedding XML types into conventional host language types (algebraic types or class hierarchies). (E.g., Sun data binding for Java, HaXML) These are good, but native XML types are more natural... no "impedance mismatch" e.g., the subtype relation on regular expression types is exactly inclusion between corresponding sets of documents..

Posted to xml by jon fernquest on 10/8/02; 11:50:48 PM

Isaac Gouy - Re: Xtatic: Native XML processing for C#  blueArrow
10/9/2002; 8:38:36 AM (reads: 623, responses: 0)
I got all excited and went to the article and found some interesting research papers but no software (yet) ;-( Oh the disappointment!

A telling hint would help set my expectations - project announcement? pure research? download available? ;-)