Appendix C: Microsoft XSLT Processors

Overview

This appendix contains summary information about Microsoft's XSLT processors.

At the time of writing, Microsoft does not yet have an XSLT 2.0 processor, so the information in this appendix all relates to its XSLT 1.0 products. In view of this, I am not including a comprehensive specification of Microsoft's APIs, merely an outline of their structure. The reference information can be found in Microsoft's own documentation, or in books that concentrate on XSLT 1.0 processing.

Microsoft offers two families of products, with completely different APIs. The XSLT processor in the MSXML3/4 family comes as standard with Internet Explorer 6, though it is also available as a free-standing component. More recently, the System.Xml classes have become available as part of the .NET framework. This appendix gives a brief outline of both these product families.

The current FAQ page for XSLT on the MSXML4 site gives the following question and answer:

• Q:  

  Will MSXML support XSLT 2.0?

  

  Answers

  A:  

  No. MSXML versions 4.0 and later fully implement and support XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0 (W3C Recommendation November 16,1999). If your XML application requires a later version of XSLT, Microsoft strongly recommends moving to the newer System.Xml framework classes, because all future XML development efforts will be focused there.

So, you can't say they didn't tell you.

Sadly, there is no corresponding FAQ page that tells you whether and when the System.Xml technology will be enhanced to support XSLT 2.0. However, the unofficial rumors indicate that there are no immediate plans. Microsoft appears to be concentrating its efforts at present on implementing XQuery.

There is general consensus that MSXML3/4 is usually faster than the .NET processor, and that it conforms more closely to the W3C specifications. This situation may change, of course, over time.