XForms/Replace Tester
Motivation
You want to build a form that will allow you quickly test replacement regular expressions using XQuery's replace function.
Screen Image
Link to Working Application
Sample Program
<html
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:xf="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:ev="http://www.w3.org/2001/xml-events" >
<head>
<style type="text/css">
@namespace xf url("http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms");
body {font-family: Ariel, Helvetica, san-serif}
/* Input controls appear on their own lines. */
xf|input, xf|select, xf|select1, xf|textarea
{display:block; margin:5px 0;}
/* Makes the labels right aligned in a 150px wide column that floats to the left of the input controls. */
xf|input > xf|label, xf|select > xf|label, xf|select1 > xf|label, xf|textarea > xf|label, xf|output > xf|label
{font-weight: bold;text-align:right; padding-right:10px; width:150px; float:left; text-align:right;}
/* make the input boxes a little wider */
.xf-value {width: 200px}
</style>
<xf:model>
<xf:instance id="request" xmlns="">
<data>
<input>abcdefghi</input>
<pattern>def</pattern>
<replacement>123</replacement>
</data>
</xf:instance>
<xf:instance id="response" xmlns="">
<data/>
</xf:instance>
<xf:submission id="submit" method="get" action="http://localhost:8080/exist/rest/db/test/replace/replace.xq" replace="instance" instance="response"
separator="&">
<xf:toggle case="case-busy" ev:event="xforms-submit" />
<xf:toggle case="case-submit-error" ev:event="xforms-submit-error" />
<xf:toggle case="case-done" ev:event="xforms-submit-done" />
</xf:submission>
</xf:model>
</head>
<body>
<h1>XForms Replace Tester</h1>
<xf:input ref="input">
<xf:label>Input:</xf:label>
</xf:input>
<xf:input ref="pattern">
<xf:label>Pattern:</xf:label>
</xf:input>
<xf:input ref="replacement">
<xf:label>Replacement:</xf:label>
</xf:input>
<xf:switch>
<xf:case id="ready">
<xf:submit submission="submit">
<xf:label>Submit</xf:label>
</xf:submit>
<xf:submit submission="echo-test">
<xf:label>Echo Test</xf:label>
</xf:submit>
</xf:case>
<xf:case id="case-busy">
<p>Waiting for response...</p>
</xf:case>
<xf:case id="case-submit-error">
<p>The server has returned a submit error event.</p>
</xf:case>
<xf:case id="case-done">
<xf:output ref="instance('response')/replace-result/text()">
<xf:label>Result:</xf:label>
</xf:output>
</xf:case>
</xf:switch>
</body>
</html>
XQuery Replace Tester
If you are using eXist, just place this file on the server in the same folder as your XForms test driver.
In the example above I used a test folder on the localhost:
http://localhost:8080/exist/rest/db/test/replace/replace.xq
xquery version "1.0";
declare namespace exist = "http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist";
declare namespace system="http://exist-db.org/xquery/system";
declare namespace request="http://exist-db.org/xquery/request";
declare option exist:serialize "method=xml media-type=text/xml indent=yes";
(: replace demo :)
let $input := request:get-parameter('input', '')
let $pattern := request:get-parameter('pattern', '')
let $replacement := request:get-parameter('replacement', '')
return
<results>
<input>{$input }</input>
<pattern>{$pattern}</pattern>
<replacement>{$replacement}</replacement>
<replace-result>{replace($input , $pattern, $replacement)}</replace-result>
</results>
Discussion
This shows that you can quickly built tools to teach yourself complex functions like regular expression handling. You can also use the XQuery match function with returns a true/false if the regular expression matches an input string.
There are two variations of this example that are interesting. The first is where you replace the input form with a large text area for doing global replacements of large blocks of text. The second is where you replace the patten input box with a selection list with common replacement patterns.
References
Examples of replacement functions can be found here: