XPath Extensions
With Version 0.1.0.0 an XPath extension is available in xmlsh which allows calling into xmlsh from with any xpath context including xpath, xlst, xquery, and the builtin <[ ... ]> commands.
The namespace "xmlsh" is predeclared for the XML expression syntax <[ ... ]> as well as the xquery, xpath and xslt commands.
For example, the following works without using an explicit declaration
echo <[ <foo/>/xmlsh:eval("xcat") ]>Similary the syntax to xquery is supported
xquery -n -q 'xmls:eval("echo hi")'Extension functions implemented
eval
The eval xpath function evaluates its first argument as an xmlsh string (identical to the eval command) and optionally its second argument as positional parameters. The return value of the eval function is the standard output of the command.
Examples
xecho <[ xmlsh:eval("xecho $*" , ("foo" , <bar/> , 1 ) ) ]>
xquery -n 'xmlsh:eval("xls")'
xpath -n 'xmlsh:eval("xls $*" , "*.xml")'
var=<[ xmlsh:eval("xls") ]>Calling XSLT from XQuery.
An interesting use of eval is to call xslt from within xquery or visa-versa. The context is passed to eval as the stdin and the output of the command becomes the result value of the expression. These examples are in xquery either via the <[ ]> syntax or the xquery command and require calling xquery from xmlsh to activate the extension function.
Example, in an XQuery expression, or file run from xmlsh
/foo/bar/xmlsh:eval("xslt -f style.xsl")/spamcalls "xslt" with the sytlesheet "style.xsl" passing the input context from /foo/bar as the input and then the output is further evaluated to extract the /spam child
An alternative of the above which can use variables for the stylesheet
let $style := "style.xsl"
return
/foo/bar/xmlsh:eval("xslt" , ("-f" , $style) )/spamAn alternative which passes the input context as a third argument
let $style := "style.xsl"
return
xmlsh:eval("xslt" , ("-f" , $style), /foo/bar )/spam