SXML, SXPath, SXSLT

SXML and SXML tools are S-expression-based implementations of W3C XML Recommendations, the embedding of XML data and XML query and manipulation tools into Scheme. The S-expression-based data format and query and transformation tools are conformant with W3C Recommendations: XML, XPath, XSLT, and XPointer. The core of our technique is SXML: an abstract syntax tree of an XML document. SXML is also a concrete representation of the XML Infoset in the form of S-expressions. SXML fully supports XML Namespaces, processing instructions, parsed and unparsed entities.

All SXML query and manipulation tools are implemented in a pure functional subset of Scheme. XPath expressions, XSLT patterns and XPointer notation are translated into Scheme data structures and functions. SXML tree is a data structure, but it can be directly evaluated as if it were an expression. These features make XML data and XML processing a part of Scheme and eliminate a lexical barrier for XML processing. A combination of W3C conformance with seamless integration into a programming language is a distinctive feature of our tools.

Also see the SXML home page.

• Developers: Oleg Kiselyov and Kirill Lisovsky
• Contact:
  • Oleg Kiselyov
    Email: oleg-at-pobox.com
• Users: SXML and SXML tools have been used in real-life commercial and government applications in several countries for over two years. The papers below describe several production examples: a weather data dissemination system, the official website of a large technical university, web services.
• In use: since 1999.
• Language: Scheme
• Compilers: all major Scheme implementations.
• Line count (code): about 4K.
• Availability: Public domain.
• Related publications:
  • Oleg Kiselyov, SXML Specification, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, v.37(6), pp. 52-58, June 2002.
  • Oleg Kiselyov, Kirill Lisovsky, XML, XPath, XSLT implementations as SXML, SXPath, and SXSLT, International Lisp Conference, ILC 2002. October 27-31, 2002. San Francisco, CA.
  • Oleg Kiselyov, Shriram Krishnamurthi, SXSLT: Manipulation Language for XML, In: Veronica Dahl, Philip Wadler (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages: 5th International Symposium, PADL 2003. New Orleans, LA, USA, January 13-14, 2003. Volume 2562 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 256-272, Springer-Verlag, January 2003.