Signs on the Sand

Here goes nxslt3.exe/NxsltTask v3.0. It's nxslt tool for .Net 3.5. It can do everything nxslt2/NxsltTask v2.3 can plus the ability to run compiled XSLT stylesheets.

Now short documentation about running compiled XSLT stylesheets.

Let's say you have a stylesheet called mytransform.xsl. First you compile it using nxsltc:

nxsltc mytransform.xsl /out:mytransform.dll

The result is mytransform.dll, containing mytransform class.

Now you can run it. Here is a full form:

nxslt3 document.xml -c mytransform -af mytransform.dll

-c option says you want to run compiled stylesheet. Instead of XSLT stylesheet file name you pass compiled stylesheet class name (fully qualified if it has a namespace). And you need to specify dll file, where compiled stylesheet can be found.

Of course if you can afford assume things you can make it shorter. If dll is named after stylesheet and can be found in the current directory, you can omit it:

nxslt3 document.xml -c mytransform

Alternatively if dll contains single compiled stylesheet you can specify dll and omit stylesheet:

nxslt3 document.xml -c -af mytransform.dll

If you happens to compile your stylesheets into a strongly named dll:

nxsltc mytransform.xsl /keyfile:d:\keys\test.snk

and then installed it into the GAC, you run it by specifying full or partial dll name after -an option:

nxslt3 document.xml -c -an "mytransform, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=b79508ebff528747"

This works too (partial name):

nxslt3 document.xml -c -an mytransform

That's about it.

And finally. nxslt3 is a free feature-rich .NET 3.5 XSLT command line utility and NAnt/MSBuild task which uses .NET XSLT processor - XslCompiledTransform class and supports XML Base, XInclude, XPointer, EXSLT, compiled stylesheets, embedded stylesheets, processing instruction, multioutput, custom URI resolving, custom extension functions, pretty printing, XHTML output, XSLT 2.0-like character maps and more.

nxslt3.exe/NxsltTask are free tools under BSD license. Download here.

I updated nxsltc - XSLT compiler for .NET 3.5 tool one more time. I added /version:<x.x.x.x> and /keyfile:<file> options. Former is used to specify resulting DLL version and latter - to sign it with a strong name.

nxsltc.exe catalog2html.xslt /version:2.3.4.5 /keyfile:d:\keys\test.snk

The usage now looks like this:

D:\>nxsltc.exe /?
XSLT Compiler version 1.0beta2 for .NET 3.5
(c) 2007 Oleg Tkachenko, http://www.xmllab.net

Usage: nxsltc  [options]
where possible options include:
  /out:         Specifies the output file name
  /debug[+|-]   Emit debugging information
  /nowarn       Disable all warnings
  /namespace:   Specifies namespace for compiled stylesheets
  /version:     Specifies assembly version
  /keyfile:     Specifies strong name key file
  /help         Display this usage message (Short form: /?)
  /nologo       Do not display compiler copyright banner

I also put together some documentation point at http://www.xmllab.net/nxsltc.

Get nxsltc v1.0beta2 here.

I also updated nxsltc.exe (well, just rebuilt it using Visual Studio 2008 Beta2).

nXSLTC is an experimental XSLT to MSIL compiler for the forthcoming .NET 3.5. nXSLTC compiles one or more XSLT stylesheets into DLL. Compiled stylesheets then can be used for transforming XML documents using XslCompiledTransform class.

Download nXSLTC v1.0beta2

More info about nXSLTC.

Now I have to compile nxslt for .NET 3.5 and make it able to run compiled stylesheets. Then I'm going to push IronXSLT.

What's the probability of having two car accidents in one month? It must be high enough. Just a month after the first one some asshole hit me and run away. I wonder if it's a bad luck or actually a good luck? Sure, my own car is totaled and a company car doesn't look good either, but hey, I didn't get even a scratch, so I believe I'm a lucky guy.

Ok, back to work. I uploaded version 2.3 of the nxslt2.exe/NxsltTask tool. It's probably the last version for .NET 2.0. Anyway, here is what's new:

Oh, just in case: nxslt2 is a free feature-rich .NET 2.0 XSLT command line utility and NAnt/MSBuild task which uses .NET 2.0 XSLT processor - XslCompiledTransform class and supports XML Base, XInclude, XPointer, EXSLT, embedded stylesheets, processing instruction, multioutput, custom URI resolving, custom extension functions, pretty printing, XHTML output, XSLT 2.0-like character maps and more.

nxslt2.exe/NxsltTask are free tools under BSD license. Download here.