XSLT, 2nd Edition

Installing the Microsoft XSLT Processor

The most commonly used XSLT processor in the .NET world is the Microsoft XSLT processor. The best way to find the tools is to visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml. As of this writing (2008), the file you want to download is msxsl.exe. Put this on your system path, then go to a command prompt and type the following command:

msxsl

You’ll see a message like this:

Microsoft (R) XSLT Processor Version 4.0

Usage: MSXSL source stylesheet [options] [param=value...] [xmlns:prefix=uri...]

Options:
    -?            Show this message
    -o filename   Write output to named file
    -m startMode  Start the transform in this mode
    -xw           Strip non-significant whitespace from source and stylesheet
...

In Chapter 9, we’ll look at C# code that uses the XSLT processor built into the .NET framework. If we’re just transforming XML documents from the command line, msxsl.exe is all we’ll need.