Capital Trials at the Old Bailey

I've now got two datasets in the MySQL database, 1790-1799 and 1800-1809. Here's the relatively simple procedure for importing an XML dataset into the MySQL database:

1. Ensure that your XML file validates against bailey_trialfile_proofing.rng
2. Transform the XML file with Bailey_text_to_fk.xsl - this generates a new XML file with text replaced by foreign key values
3. Transform the result of the previous step with Bailey_add_id.xsl - this generates a file with a bunch of SQL INSERT statement
4. Import the SQL file into the database
5. Run fix_ranks.php on the web server to adjust the rank values for respites, outcomes, and trials

#1 is the most important step: if the file validates, then all of the other pieces will fall into place.

After creating an outcome_executions DB table to link outcomes with multiple execution modes, I discovered that SA had already set up a slyly-named table called "execution_specials" which accomplishes the same task and already has 1790s data. Oops.

SD just sent me his proofed version of the 1800s data XML file. We're making good progress.

While writing the XSLT stylesheet for the Bailey project XML data, I stumbled across a misleading 'gotcha' when using the XPath function empty(). Basically, empty() will ALWAYS return false as long as the element being tested exists. So, if your XML chunk looks like this:

<alias />

And your XPath looks like this (in this case, within XSLT):

<xsl:when test="empty(./alias)">

That test will always return false since <alias> exists. To test whether an element is empty, use the string() function. For example, if we want to determine whether <alias> is empty (which it is):

<xsl:when test="not(string(./alias))">

string() will return the string value of the element, which, in this case, is empty (but not empty() - hah).

P.S.: Martin reminded me that empty() is actually for sequences, which explains the weirdness when used with an element. But that, of course, leads one to wonder why empty() doesn't throw an error when used with a non-sequence...