FlexDoc.XYZ - Data Processing Features

XML file data sources

Ability to use any XML files as a data sources, retrieve any character or numeric data from them and generate by such data any kind of formatted/hypertext output documents.

This features is available in FlexDoc/XML.

Java application data sources

Using special drivers written with FlexDoc API, it is also possible to connect to any other non-XML data sources provided by a Java application.

Such data sources (called Data Source Models (or DSMs) and drivers to them – DSM Drivers) can be processed in the same way as XML-files and allow to generate by them any kind of documentation.

See FlexDoc/Javadoc and FlexDoc/Together as rich examples of working with such application-provided data sources.

Single document from multiple data sources

By calling from one template another templates (subtemplates) it is possible to mix data from the different data sources and to generate by them a single documentation files.

The involved data sources can be of any possible nature, both XML and non-XML types.

Creating framed HTML documentation

Using subtemplates allows to generate from one or more data sources a documentation that consists of many separate HTML files interconnected by a common network of hyperlinks and displayed in separate frame windows.

This is achieved by creating special frameset templates. Each frameset template consists of two major parts: the definition of a frameset structure and the template body. The frameset structure is defined in the form of a tree as shown on the following screenshot:

It is used to generate a frameset HTML file which contains no actual data but only a layout of frame windows. The documents displayed in the windows are generated during interpretation of the template body, which consists mostly of calls to the different document subtemplates:

Inserting graphic images (both static and provided by Java application)

FlexDoc.XYZ supports inserting graphic images into the generated documentation.

The images can be either taken from the existing graphics files (via URLs, file pathnames or Java resource names specified in the templates) – static images, or generated dynamically by a Java application and, then, provided to the FlexDoc Generator by a custom written DSM Driver (see FlexDoc API for more details).

The supported graphics formats include JPEG, GIF, PNG, and WMF. Depending on the selected output format and the generator's settings, the images can be either inserted as the references to the graphics files stored externally near the generated documents (HTML, RTF) or embedded directly in the document files (RTF). See Image Formatting for more details.

For more information about image support, see also Image Control in Template Components documentation.

Creating hyperlinks

FlexDoc allows to generate hypertext links between any parts of the generated documentation as well as to the external URLs.

The internal links are generated using the special hyperlink source- and target-anchors defined within the properties of template components. Each anchor definition contains specifications for generating the anchor keys.

The following screenshot shows defining two hyperlink source anchors by a Data Control component (the two are because this control generates a text hyperlink which loads two frame windows at once; see description below):

And here is how the particular source anchor defined:

The following two screenshot show defining a hyperlink target anchor (there may be also several of them; but in that case, this is only for convenience purpose):

The generation is subdivided into two phases:
  1. During the first (estimation) phase, by the anchor definitions specified in the templates, the possible anchor positions in the output documents are produced, together with their anchor keys. These positions are stored in a single pool for all generated documents.
  2. On the second (generation) phase, when the real output is generated, by each anchor having a match in the anchor pool (i.e. another one of the opposite source/target type and with the same keys), the real hyperlink anchor (source or target) is produced and inserted in the output.

Targeting frame windows

A hyperlink source definition may include a name of the targeted frame window (see screenshot above).

It is also possibility to define by the same template component several hyperlink sources assigned with different document destinations and targeted to different frame windows (see screenshot above). This allows to load from a generated hyperlink several frame windows at once with the different documents.

Hyperlinks within images (imagemaps)

For images provided by a Java application (via DSM Drivers), it is possible to generate multiple hyperlinks within a single image. To do this, the DSM Driver should also provide a hypertext imagemap for the image.

The following screenshot shows how various hyperlinks are defined for a complex diagram image (specified in the diagram.tpl template included in FlexDoc/XML | XSDDoc):

Supported data types

FlexDoc recognizes the following base data types of XML-element/attribute values: These data types are considered in many situations. For example, when defining sorting of sequences of elements or attributes.

The 'object' data type represents a reference to any Java object and is useful when the data source is provided by a Java applications and represents its internal data.

In addition, FlexDoc recognizes attributes with element identifier data types:

The values of ID attributes are used to distinguish particular elements. The IDREF attributes can be used to obtain the referenced elements as well as for generation of hyperlinks.

Besides this, all values can be arrays of the above types.

FlexQuery-expressions

FlexQuery-expressions are small scripts with Java-based syntax widely used in FlexDoc templates to specify all kinds of dynamically computed settings (such as dynamic properties of template components, filter conditions and so on).

The current FlexQuery implementation supports the following features:

Retrieving elements/attributes by Location Paths

Location Paths are special expressions used in FlexDoc templates to specify searching of elements or attributes. Location Paths applied in FlexDoc are similar to those in XPath and looks like the following:
Step1 / Step2 / ... / StepN
Each step may assume the form:
axis :: ETs [filter]
where axis is the step's axis; ETs is a list of matching element types (delimited with '|'); filter is a boolean FlexQuery-expression

StepN, in addition, may assume the form:

@name
where name is the name of an attribute.

However, there are several important differences between Location Paths used in FlexDoc and those used in XPath:

  1. The axes borrowed from XPath are only the following:
    • child
    • self
    • child-or-self
    • descendant
    • descendant-or-self
    • attribute (only in the form: @name)
  2. A new axis link was introduced, which has a form:
    name^

    where name is the name of an attribute whose type should be either IDREF or IDREF[] (an arrays of IDREF). This axis selects all those elements of the XML document (or DSM) whose identifiers are listed in the attribute's value.

  3. XPath predicates are replaced with a filter, which can be any boolean FlexQuery-expression.

For more information see documentation: Element Iterator | Location Paths.

Iterations by elements, attributes, attribute values

The general data processing scheme employed in FlexDoc consists in organizing nested iterations by sets of elements collected from the data source. Such iterations are specified using Element Iterator template components.

In addition to elements, it is possible to iterate by a set of attributes of a certain element or by multiple values of a certain attribute. Organizing iterations by sets of attributes can be useful when the same processing should be repeated for each attribute from the set. See Attribute Iterator documentation for more details.

Collecting elements by Location Rules

This is the primary method used in FlexDoc to specify collecting elements for iterations. According to it, an Element Iterator is specified with a set of Location Rules.

Each Location Rule has the following form:

Matching Element Types → Location Path
The rule is activated when the current context element has one of the Matching Element Types. Then, the Location Path is interpreted against the context element and a set of new elements is produced.

Traversing element references

Unlike techniques available in XSL Transformations, Location Rules allow to collect elements not only within a subtree attached to the context element but also to involve in the search the elements accessible via reference attributes (i.e. those with IDREF or IDREFS types). This is achieved by using link-axes (introduced in FlexDoc) together with specifying some Location Rules as recursive (i.e. repeatable an undefined number of times). For more details, see documentation: Element Iterator | Recursive Location Rules.

The following screenshot shows specifying the collecting elements by Location Rules in an Element Iterator:

Other methods of collecting elements

Besides Location Rules, FlexDoc.XYZ supports two additional alternative methods for collecting iterated elements:

Sequence

The set of elements is produced as a sequence of connected elements according to two FlexQuery-expressions:
  1. an expression calculating the first element (basing on the current context element)
  2. an expression producing all subsequent elements each next from the previous one

Custom

This allows to organize iterations by an arbitrary set of elements provided by an external Java-class. The class should be written with the FlexDoc API.

For more information, see documentation: Element Iterator | Specifying Element Iteration Scope.

Sorting

The information placed in reports can be presented in a particular sorting order. This is achieved by specifying the sorting order for the iterated elements, attributes or the attribute values:

Elements can be sorted:

Attributes can be sorted: Multiple values of a single attribute can be sorted according to the value type.

For more information, see documentation: Element Iterator | Sorting and Template Components | Attribute Iterator.