XML Hacks

Use EXSLT Extensions

Use EXSLT extension functions to perform a variety of tasks not available in XSLT 1.0

Extensibility defines the ways in which a language can be extended. XSLT is extensible, meaning that if you are a programmer, you can add your own functionality to a processor in the form of extension elements, attributes, and functions. The developers of XSLT realized that they couldn’t please everyone with their first shot (who can?), so they made it possible for developers to add features to their XSLT processors independently, and to share those features with others.

Most processors offer their own internal extensions, such as Xalan and Saxon. The EXSLT group also provides a number of extensions that can be supported directly by a processor or by pure XSLT 1.0 processors (http://www.exslt.org). EXSLT organizes its extensions into modules, such as the math and string modules. You can even submit extensions to EXSLT.

The EXSLT effort attempts to standardize and unify all XSLT 1.0 extensions. Saxon, for example, now implements many, but not all, EXSLT extension functions. It is good practice to use EXSLT extensions when available, if your processor supports them. It may be easier, however, to simply use a proprietary extension offered by your processor. XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 offer many more functions than their predecessors, and will likely be the most successful at unifying previous extensions to XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0.

EXSLT currently offers 74 extensions, most of them ...