Question

We are building a system that gets XML data from a database, uses XSLT to transform it to XHTML and at the same time use an external XML file to retrieve culture-specific labels (translations for our labels).

Short Question
Does the translation/culture-specific system seem logical ? Efficient ?

Any alternative concepts are welcome (in this specific context)

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Detailed Question

XML data

<page id="55" objecttype="ChristianOrthodoxMonument">
 <field name="uniquename">some unique name here</field>
        .. multiple field elements here ..
</page>

XML culture-labels

<ChristianOrthodoxMonument>
 <uniquename culture-1="Ονομασία" culture-2="Unique name" />
 <birthdate culture-1="Ημ/νία γέννησης" culture-2="Date of birth" />
</ChristianOrthodoxMonument>

now in XSLT i pass the cultureid parameter to be used for the mapping to the labels.

XSLT (example snippet)

<xsl:param name="cultureid" select="1" />
<xsl:variable name="objecttype" select="/page/@objecttype" />

and to map to the external file which is included with

<xsl:variable name="culture" select="document('cultural-labels.xml')" />

i created a pseudo dynamic xpath

<xsl:template name="translate">
 <xsl:variable name="nodename" select="@name" />
 <xsl:value-of select="$culture/*[name()=$objecttype]/*[name()=$nodename]/@*[name()=concat('culture-',$cultureid)]" />
</xsl:template>

which i call whenever i want to get the label for a field.

Question A : is this xpath efficient or overkill ? overcomplicated ?
Question B : does this model seem right or am i missing something vital that will prove to be an obstacle in the future ?
Question C : Is there any theory/example on similar mapping techniques to external XML files ?

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2nd Update with composite key usage

key

<xsl:key name="find-node" match="*" use="concat(name(..),'!',name())"  />

lookup

<xsl:template name="lookup-label">
<xsl:param name="objecttype" />
<xsl:variable name="nodename" select="@name" />
<xsl:for-each select="$culture">
    <xsl:value-of select="key('find-node',concat($objecttype,'!',$nodename))/@*[name()=$culturefield]" />
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

is this an improvement ?

Answer 1

Short Question Does the translation/culture-specific system
seem logical ?

Yes.

Efficient ?

It can be efficient — not exactly your implementation.

i created a pseudo dynamic xpath

<xsl:template name="translate"> 
 <xsl:variable name="nodename" select="@name" /> 
 <xsl:value-of select=
  "$culture/*[name()=$objecttype]
               /*[name()=$nodename]
                    /@*[name()=concat('culture-',$cultureid)]"

/>

which i call whenever i want to get
the label for a field.

Question A : is this xpath efficient or overkill ?

No, it isn’t efficient, because the whole XML document will be traversed many times to find specific objecttype nodes.

overcomplicated ?

No.

Question B : does this model seem right or am i missing something vital
that will prove to be an obstacle in
the future ?

The model is generally OK.

Question C : Is there any theory/example on similar mapping
techniques to external XML files ?

There are many examples of efficient lookup based on keys — even at SO. Also see this one.