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 November 3rd, 2007, is 9.0.0.1.
[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 9, implements the XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 specifications. Saxon 9 is capable of processing XSLT 1.0 files as well.
Saxon 9 is broken into two separate forms: Saxon-B and Saxon-SA. Both of these are built on 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 and XQuery 1.0 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.
The latest version, Saxon 9.0.0.1, conforms to the XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 W3C Recommendations, available in both -B and -SA forms, for Java and .NET.
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 6.5.5 | Saxon-B 9.x | Saxon-SA 9.x |
|---|---|---|---|
| XSLT 1.0 Support | Yes | Via backwards-compatible behavior | Via backwards-compatible behavior |
| XPath 1.0 Support | Yes | Via XPath 1.0 compatibility mode | Via XPath 1.0 compatibility mode |
| XSLT 2.0 Support | No, forwards-compatible behavior applies | Yes | Yes |
| XPath 2.0 Support | No | Yes | Yes |
| XQuery 1.0 Support | No | Yes | Yes |
| XML Schema 1.0 Support | No | No | Yes |
| Serialization Feature Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| xml:id 1.0 Support | No | Yes | Yes |
| xml-stylesheet Processing Instruction Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced Extension Functions | No | No | Yes |
| Advanced Optimizer | No | No | Yes |
| Streaming | No | No | Yes |
| Java Code Generation | No | No | Yes |
[edit] External links
- Saxon-B homepage
- Saxonica homepage, for Saxon-SA
- Saxon XQuery Tools
