Invoking XSLT

• The first step involved in using the XSLT library, is to set the conformance level. At present, only Basic XSLT Processor is supported. In the future, we hope to add support for Schema-Aware XSLT Processor, so the first step is to inherit from XM_XPATH_SHARED_CONFORMANCE and call conformance.set_basic_xslt_processor.
• The next step is to configure the processor, by creating an XM_XSLT_CONFIGURATION.
• The next step is Creating a Transformer.
• The next step is Executing the Transformation.
• Finally, Accessing the Transformation Results.

Customizable interfaces

The following is a list of XSLT interfaces that the Eiffel programmer may need to implement. In all cases, the library provides at least one concrete implementation.

• XM_XSLT_OUTPUT_URI_RESOLVER
• XM_XSLT_ERROR_LISTENER
• XM_XSLT_TRACE_LISTENER
• XM_XSLT_TRANSFORMATION_RESULT
• XM_XSLT_SOURCE
• XM_XSLT_ENCODER_FACTORY is explained in XM_XSLT_CONFIGURATION.
• XM_XSLT_MESSAGE_EMITTER_FACTORY is explained in XM_XSLT_CONFIGURATION.

Extensions

XSLT and XPath provide for standard mechanisms to access extensions to the language. This library provides some built-in extensions in the namespace http://www.gobosoft.com/eiffel/gobo/gexslt/extension. In order to make use of them, you must provide a namespace declaration in your stylesheets, something like: gexslt:xmlns="http://www.gobosoft.com/eiffel/gobo/gexslt/extension". Don't forget to exclude this namespace from your result documents with: exclude-result-prefixes="gexslt" when appropriate.

You can also provide your own extensions. In this case, you should allocate a namespace URI that you control to your extensions.

In some cases (notably output extensions), the mechanism for accessing built-in extensions differs slightly from that for user-written extensions. In these cases, I have incorporated example classes into the library so you can see how to code your own extensions. These examples are all in the namespace http://www.gobosoft.com/eiffel/gobo/gexslt/extension/example.

Output extensions

Other extensions

Compiling programs which use the XSLT library

To see which libraries need to be added to your ECF file, take a look at the example program in ${GOBO}/library/xslt/example/schematron.

Conformance

See Conformance to standards

Serializer

For documentation on the serializer (which is a separate component for general XML serialization - that is, you do not have to use the XSLT engine to use it), see XSLT 2.0 serialization.