XTC -- The XML Transformation Coordinator for XML Document Transformation Technologies

In the recent time the Extensible Markup Language (XML) is playing an increasing role in the exchange of nearly all kind of Web-based data and elsewhere. Hence, the development and enhancement of XML document transformation technologies and concepts become essential in the future. However, numerous specific transformation approaches specify their transformation definitions in XML files themselves. In this paper we present the XML Transformation Coordinator (XTC) which supports the composition and adaptation step in the development of these XML transformation definitions implementing a hierarchy concept of transformation operators. This hierarchy concept allows the specification of complex transformation operators without changing the underlying transformation technology. The complex operators are either generic or specifically suited to develop transformations in a certain domain or application area.