How to use a template named xsl:initial-template with XSLT 3.0 and oXygen 19

[Martin Honnen]

oXygen 19 now supports Saxon 9.7 EE or PE to run XSLT 3.0 transformations, a new feature in XSLT 3.0 is the predefined template name xsl:initial-template for a named template e.g.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"

	xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"

	xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions/math"

	exclude-result-prefixes="xs math"

	expand-text="yes"

	version="3.0">

	

	<xsl:param name="seq" as="xs:string*" select="'c', 'a', 'b', 'z'"/>

	

	<xsl:template name="xsl:initial-template">

		This is a test {sort($seq)}

	</xsl:template>

	

</xsl:stylesheet>

When you run Saxon from the command line the -it option suffices to select that template as the initially executed starting point of the transformation. How can I achieve that in oXygen 19 with Saxon 9.7 EE selected as the transformer? I can set the initial template in the options to that name but when I try to run the transformation I get the errors

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System ID: C:\Users\User\Somepath\test2017040601.xsl

Scenario: test2017040601

XSL file: C:\Users\User\Somepath\test2017040601.xsl

Engine name: Saxon-EE 9.7.0.15

Severity: error

Description: The requested initial template xsl:initial-template does not exist



System ID: C:\Users\User\Somepath\test2017040601.xsl

Scenario: test2017040601

XSL file: C:\Users\User\Somepath\test2017040601.xsl

Engine name: Saxon-EE 9.7.0.15

Severity: fatal

Description: XTDE0040: The requested initial template xsl:initial-template does not exist

URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#err-XTDE0040

[adrian]

Hello,

I'm afraid v19.0 does not yet support the default initial template that Saxon 9.7 supports.
The problem is Saxon 9.7 does not seem to work if you explicitly specify the default initial template name, which is mandatory in Oxygen. So it won't work with -it:"xsl:initial-template", it fails with "Template xsl:initial-template does not exist (or is not public)". This is why it doesn't work like that in Oxygen either.
I have logged an issue for this. We will notify this thread when it is implemented/supported.

Until then I propose using the following workaround:
- declare a template (e.g. main) that calls the default initial template:

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    <xsl:template name="main">

        <xsl:call-template name="xsl:initial-template"/>

    </xsl:template>

- configure the initial template in the advanced options from Oxygen to that name ("main").
Outside of Oxygen you can simply rely on the "xsl:initial-template".

Regards,
Adrian

[Martin Honnen]

I managed to get it to work with oXygen by specifying the template name in the form

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{http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}initial-template

instead of

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xsl:initial-template

.

[adrian]

Hi,

Good find. I can confirm your workaround. I have tested and it works in both Oxygen 19.0 and Oxygen 18.x + Saxon-EE 9.7 External Add-on.

Regards,
Adrian

[geddie2001]

Hi,

I have this in my stylesheet:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions/math"
    exclude-result-prefixes="xs math"
    version="3.0">
    <xsl:template name="main">
        
        <xsl:call-template name="{http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}initial-template"/>
        
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

However, I'm getting the following error:

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XTSE0020: Both the prefix {{http} and the local part {//www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transfor...} are invalid

I am using Saxon-PE 9.6.0.7

[Martin Honnen]

The thread so far was about using the oXygen GUI to use a transformation scenario and run Saxon with XSLT 3 without a primary source but to start with that particular named template the XSLT 3.0 spec defines.



It is not clear how your post relates to that as you have presented XSLT code using

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<xsl:call-template name="{http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}initial-template"/>

which doesn't make any sense as your stylesheet does contain any such template you want to call.

Furthermore the first Saxon release to implement the final XSLT 3 standard is Saxon 9.8.

I can't tell whether 9.6 supports enhanced QNames in the name attribute of call-template but the syntax for that in code would be (https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-30/#prod-xp ... lifiedName)

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<xsl:call-template name="Q{http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform}initial-template"/>

And of course using

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<xsl:call-template name="xsl:initial-template"/>

would do as well, as long as 9.6 supports that XSLT 3 feature.