What You Need to Use this Book

Many of the examples in this book, as you would expect, require an XSLT 2.0 processor, and at the time of writing the only XSLT 2.0 processor that will run these examples is the Saxon product. You will need Saxon version 7.9 or later, which can be obtained from http://saxon.sf.net/ .

The XSLT 2.0 specification describes two kinds of XSLT processor: a basic processor and a schema-aware processor. Saxon 7.9 is a basic XSLT processor. As I write this, I am currently testing Saxon 8.0, which will be a schema-aware processor. There are only two sections of the book that require the additional features of a schema-aware processor, namely Chapter 4, which discusses the relationships between XSLT and XML Schema, and Chapter 11, the case study where XSLT is applied to genealogical data. To run these examples you will need to acquire a schema-aware processor such as Saxon 8.0 (unlike the basic processor, this will not be free). The schema-aware version of Saxon will be available from http://www.saxonica.com/.

There is information on installing Saxon in Chapter 1 (see page 12). Before you can use Saxon you will need to install JDK 1.4, and if you're on Windows then it's a good idea to install a text editor such as jEdit ( www.jedit.org ) that provides a console for running operating system commands.

Of course, it is likely that during the months after this book is published, other XSLT 2.0 processors will become available from other vendors . Most of the examples should run with any processor that conforms to the standards.