SAXON 4.2 - An XSL Compiler

From      Michael.Kay@icl.com Wed May  5 16:47:10 1999
Date:     Fri, 23 Apr 1999 22:58:18 +0100
From:     Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@icl.com>
Subject:  ANNOUNCE: SAXON 4.2 - An XSL Compiler

SAXON 4.2 is available for download on the usual URL:

http://home.iclweb.com/icl2/mhkay/saxon.html

The most significant new feature is an XSL compiler. This takes an XSL stylesheet as input and generates a Java application as output. The Java application (with the help of the SAXON run-time library) performs the actual processing of source XML documents without further reference to the original style sheet. The compiled stylesheet can be invoked from the command line, from a client application via an API, or can be installed as a servlet and invoked directly from the browser. A compiled stylesheet runs 2-3 times faster than the interpreter, with a bigger potential saving in servlet mode because it avoids the need to reinitialise for each document served.

The compiler is written in XSL, generates Java, and has been used to compile itself.

SAXON's XSL interpreter remains available and has been upgraded to conform closely with the Dec 1998 XSL draft (before they moved the goalposts). The Java API also remains available and benefits from support for many of the newly-implemented XSL features, e.g. richer pattern syntax.

SAXON's XSL, while lacking some of the features in the standard, has a number of extensions designed to widen the range of applicability. These include:

multiple output files
generate any text output file (not just XML or HTML)
close integration of Java and XSL code
extensibility (e.g., to access SQL databases)

A new feature which responds to a request many XSL users have made is a "group-by" operator which allows extra levels to be added to the document structure, e.g., for subheadings.

Mike Kay

XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list

Prepared by Robin Cover for the The SGML/XML Web Page archive.

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