Full Control over the XSLT Debugging Process

Oxygen provides all XSLT debugger capabilities (step into, step over, step out, run, run to cursor, run to end, pause, stop). During the debugging process, the current XML and XSLT nodes are shown (see the right part in the image above) with specific details (an arrow icon to show the action performed on it, the name, the resource, and the line). By clicking the arrow, the text sections corresponding to the XML and XSLT stylesheet nodes are highlighted in the editor.

XSLT Call Stack View

The current stack containing both XSLT stylesheet and XML source nodes can be seen at any time during XSLT debugging. The advantage of this approach is that the scope of the source in which a stylesheet instruction is being executed is easily visible (the last red colored node in the stack).

Trace History View

Entering and leaving node events are logged and available in a view to show the history of the processor execution. You can click the entries in the list to see the corresponding node in the editor.

XPath Watch View

You can add custom XPath expressions to the XWatch view . The XPath expressions are evaluated automatically and the XSLT debugger updates the values dynamically as the processor changes its XML source context. The results of an evaluation can be a single value, a tree fragment, or a list of nodes and are presented in the Node Set view. The XWatch view is useful when debugging the expressions for template matches.

XSLT Variables View

The debugger lists all XSLT variables and parameters that are visible in the current XSLT context, along with their scope and actual value. This view is updated as the XSLT processor changes the context during the transformation.

Tree View for Presenting Node Set Values

The Nodes/Values Set view displays XSLT node set values in a tree-like fashion. It is used in conjunction with the used in relation with the Variables view and XWatch view. This view is useful for debugging stylesheets that keep intermediary results in variables, such as DocBook.

You can easily locate nodes from the tree by simply clicking on them and the editor will select the corresponding XML source nodes.

XSLT Templates View

The list with all the XSLT templates used during the transformation, and their corresponding number of calls, are presented in the XSLT Templates view. This allows you to spot unused templates and the most frequently used templates since they are ordered based on the hits count.