XForms capabilities - "editing" an XML file

[Victor Engmark]

I am quite new to XForms, but I need to do a feasibility study to see
whether a system I'm supposed to make can be done without any scripting
or programming language (to make it simple and not need any installation
except for an Xforms reader). The problem is, from what I've read, I
cannot find clear answers to whether XForms can do everything it will
need to...

The challenges are as follows:
- One input.xml file is generated by selecting rather a lot of data from
a database [1]
- The XForm must be able to display only a subset of this data,
according to an arbitrary search string (this could perhaps be an XPath
expression, but should be "human-readable" for non-techies)
- Generally speaking, the search would have to be able to display any
number of levels of element contents (no elements have mixed contents)
- For example, the search page would prompt to choose any of "slots",
"jobs", or "documents", the number of levels, and type an ID (with
wildcards) which the elements must match to be displayed in the results page
- The XForm must be able to generate "ref" attributes dynamically (by
combining two values from the input.xml for each "ref"), e.g. like
ref="slot_QBBI_.A12R1"
- When submitting, the XForm must overwrite _only_ the subset of
input.xml which was displayed (to avoid data loss)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

--
Victor Engmark

[1] Example XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<data>
<slot>
<id>QBBI_.A12R1</id>
<description>Interconnection MB-MB</description>
<type></type>
<dcumStart>455.9407</dcumStart>
<otherId>QBBI_A12R1=RI18</otherId>
<parent></parent>
<item></item>
<equipment></equipment>
<comment></comment>
<createdOn>2004-02-03</createdOn>
<createdBy>MTF</createdBy>
<job>
<id>10559068</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
<job>
<id>10559069</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
</slot>

<slot>
<id>QBBI_.A13R1</id>
<description>Interconnection MB-MB</description>
<type></type>
<dcumStart>509.3907</dcumStart>
<otherId>QBBI_A13R1=RI18</otherId>
<parent></parent>
<item></item>
<equipment></equipment>
<comment></comment>
<createdOn>2004-02-03</createdOn>
<createdBy>MTF</createdBy>
<job>
<id>10559079</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
<job>
<id>10559080</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
<job>
<id>10559081</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
</job>
<job>
<id>10559085</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
<job>
<id>10559086</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
<job>
<id>10559087</id>
<status>Pending</status>
<result></result>
<phase></phase>
<evmId></evmId>
<responsible></responsible>
<providedBy></providedBy>
<executedBy></executedBy>
<actualStartDate></actualStartDate>
<actualEndDate></actualEndDate>
<comment></comment>
</job>
</job>
<document>
<edmsId>ACL609040010</edmsId>
<file>blah.txt</file>
<nc>true</nc>
</document>
<document>
<edmsId>ACR108710000</edmsId>
<file></file>
<nc></nc>
</document>
<document>
<edmsId>LHC-HQB-CA-0001</edmsId>
<file></file>
<nc></nc>
</document>
</slot>
</data>