EXSLT

Question

Hi,
Does Oracles XSLT processor in 10g support EXSLT? If not, how can I gain advanced date transformations using XSLT and Oracle?
Regards

Answer 1

Oracle XDK 10g does have nice support for calling Java extension functions,
for example, see this article:
http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/31675/0/page/1
The problem is that it's not portable, which might be acceptable as well,
but Oracle XDK makes it impossible to craft portable functions
as described here:
http://www.exslt.org/howto.html#function-portability
For example, if you try this:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:exslt-math="http://exslt.org/math"
xmlns:ora-math="http://www.oracle.com/XSL/Transform/java/java.lang.Math"
extension-element-prefixes="ora-math exslt-math"
exclude-result-prefixes="xsl ora-math exslt-math">
<xsl:import href="....exslt/functions/sqrt/math.sqrt.template.xsl" />
<xsl:template name="magnitude">
<xsl:param name="u"/>
<xsl:param name="v"/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="function-available('exslt-math:sqrt')">
<xsl:value-of select="exslt-math:sqrt( ($u*$u) + ($v*$v) )" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="function-available('ora-math:sqrt')">
<xsl:value-of select="ora-math:sqrt( ($u*$u) + ($v*$v) )" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:call-template name="exslt-math:sqrt">
<xsl:with-param name="number" select="($u*$u) + ($v*$v)" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
The Oracle XSLT engine complains:
XML-22016: (Error) Extension function namespace should start with
'http://www.oracle.com/XSL/Transform/java/'.
This paranoid attitude means that the EXSLT stuff cannot even be in an Oracle stylesheet, even if it is never invoked. A more open minded live-n-let-live approach woud allow some approximation to portability.
Mik
P.S. The standard EXSLT library has a bug for this example,
you have to change a line in math.sqrt.template.xsl from
<xsl:call-template name="sqrt">
to
<xsl:call-template name="math:sqrt">