RELEASE_2_1_13/src/blocks/tour/samples/pipelines/docs/index.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

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<page
    xmlns:cinclude="http://apache.org/cocoon/include/1.0"
>

    <content>
        <p>
            The multi-channel publishing subsystem of Cocoon is based on <em>XML processing pipelines</em>.
        </p>
        <p>
            A pipeline consists of:
            <ul>
                <li>A <em>Generator</em>, which generates XML data for further processing.</li>

                <li>
                    Zero or more <em>Transformers</em>, which process, transform or complete
                    the XML data.
                </li>

                <li>
                    A <em>Serializer</em>, which transforms the XML data into the appropriate
                    text or binary format for the client.
                </li>
            </ul>
        </p>
        <p>
            The are many types of Generators, Transformers and Serializers, but
            a typical pipeline could consist of:
            <ul>
                <li>
                    A <em>FileGenerator</em> which produces XML data by parsing XML files or XML documents
                    retrieved via an HTTP request.
                </li>
                <li>
                    An <em>XSLT transformer</em> which converts the XML vocabulary to another, for example
                    XHTML.
                </li>
                <li>
                    An <em>HTMLSerializer</em> which sets the <em>text/html</em> content-type and sends
                    the XML elements as HTML to the output.
                </li>
            </ul>
        </p>
        <p>
            The building and configuration of the pipelines is controlled by the <em>sitemap</em>, an
            XML document used by Cocoon to dynamically instantiate and activate pipelines.
        </p>
        <p>
            The next pages show several examples using various components.
        </p>
    </content>
</page>