Getting XMLSpy to support EXSLT dynamic functions

Getting XMLSpy to support EXSLT dynamic functions

Recently I have been using XSLT to transform XML from one format to the other. I use Xalan (for Java) in the application itself, but often develop and debug with XMLSpy. I needed a way for XSLT to dynamically evaluate and select a given string, and found no easy way to do this other than the EXSLT dyn extentions.
After implementing the evalute() function, I quickly discovered that neither the default XMLSpy XSLT engine, nor MSXML recognize it. So, after a few fruitless attempts I finally decided to use the same engine that I’m using in the Java application. I simply needed to go under Tools -> Options -> XSL, then select External XSL Transformation Program.
Input:
java -cp XALAN_PATH\xalan.jar org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -in %1 -xsl %3 -out %2
Now everything transforms as expected!

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4 Responses

  1. Pietro says:

    OK, and when we get a ClassNotFound Exception, how can we install the class and from which source?
    Do we need a standalone installation of Xalan into the Java environment?
    Thanks!

  2. ericblue76 says:

    It’s been a while since I wrote this post, so the version of the Xalan .jar I used was from 2005. I doubt the class names have changed, so I would first recommend that you very executing the statement:
    java -cp XALAN_PATH\xalan.jar org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -in %1 -xsl %3 -out %2
    from the command line first. Of course, replace XALAN_PATH with the actual location on your hard drive (e.g. c:\java\libs\xalan.jar). And, make %1 your source file, %3 your .xsl file, and %2 your desired output file.

  3. Dan says:

    This works fine for me:
    java -classpath c:\work\xalan-j_2_7_1\xalan.jar org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN %1 -XSL %3 -OUT %2

  4. Jens says:

    Solution works for me (only with additional brackets):
    java -cp “C:\Program Files (x86)\xalan-j_2_7_1\xalan.jar” org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -in %1 -xsl %3 -out %2

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