Saxon XSLT
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saxon is an open-source XSLT and XQuery processor created by Michael Kay. Versions exist for Java and .NET.
The current version, as of March 31, 2007, is 8.9.
[edit] Versions
The original development line of Saxon ended with the version 6 series. This is a series of XSLT 1.0 processors. The current version, 6.5.5, is not undergoing further development aside from maintenance. The 6 series is only available for the Java programming language.
The current development line, Saxon 8, implements the XSLT v2.0 and XQuery specifications. Saxon 8 is capable of processing XSLT 1.0 files as well.
Saxon 8 is broken into two separate forms: Saxon-B and Saxon-SA. Both of these are built off of similar codebases. Saxon-B is open-source software released under the Mozilla Public License, while Saxon-SA is a closed-source commercial product.
The difference between Saxon-B and Saxon-SA is that B is "basic" while SA is "schema aware". These terms are references to terms in the XSLT 2.0 specification. A processor that is "schema aware" is able to use a W3C XML Schema to define the data types of the various elements in the source XML document(s). These data types can then be used in XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 commands. A "basic" XSLT 2.0 processor is unable to use data typing information.
Saxon-SA also has additional features, such as added optimization, serial processing, etc.
Saxon 8 is available, in both -B and -SA forms, for Java and .NET.
Saxon 8.8 is based on the W3C Candidate Recommendation versions of the XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery specifications. Saxon 8.8 was released before these specifications achieved the status of a W3C Recommendation.
Michael Kay, the author of Saxon, was the editor of the XSLT 2.0 specification.
[edit] Features
This table shows which features are available to which versions of Saxon. The Java and .NET versions are identical, so they share the same features.
| Feature | Saxon 6 | Saxon-B 8 | Saxon-SA 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| XSLT 1.0 Processor | yes | yes | yes |
| XPath 1.0 Processor | yes | yes | yes |
| Basic XSLT 2.0 Processor | no | yes | yes |
| Basic XPath 2.0 Processor | no | yes | yes |
| Basic XQuery 1.0 Processor | no | yes | yes |
| XML Schema 1.0 Processor | no | no | yes |
| Schema-Aware XSLT 2.0 Processor | no | no | yes |
| Schema-Aware XPath 2.0 Processor | no | no | yes |
| Schema-Aware XQuery 1.0 Processor | no | no | yes |
| Optimizer, additional extensions, serial processing, binary storage | no | no | yes |
[edit] External links
- Saxon-B homepage
- Saxonica homepage , for Saxon-SA
- Saxon XQuery Tools
