Is it possible to call Java functions from XSLT, using standard Java 6?

Question

I have seen examples, but the examples are always the most simple case, which even I can already get working. The case where no arguments are passed to the java function.
As soon as I try to pass an argument to the java function, i get a stupid unhelpful error message (as always error messages are unhelpful).
Or am I wasting my time using the standard provided java parser, and need to use apache or something?
anyone who can provide me with a couple lines of working code is to me a saint!
At the moment I am using calling a named template, and passing a param into this.
I want to use this param as an argument in the Java function.
Is this possible?
example code:
     <xsl:template name="calc-age">
          <xsl:param name="dob"/>          
     <xsl:variable name="sdob" select="java:lang.String.new($dob)"/>
     <xsl:value-of select="java:toString($sdob)"/>     
     </xsl:template>

Answer 1

I have fixed it.
I had to call an xslt 1 function 'string' on the variable before passing it into the java function (see below).
     <xsl:template name="calc-age">
          <xsl:param name="dob"/>          
          I know that the value of the param is: <xsl:value-of select="$dob"/><br/>     
         <xsl:variable name="poo" select="$dob"/>
         <xsl:variable name="sdob" select="java:lang.String.new(string($poo))"/> 
         And here again, we try to print a variable<xsl:value-of select="$poo"/>                <br/>
         And here again, we try to print the result of the java call<xsl:value-of select="java:toString($sdob)"/>      <br/>
         and here is our variable sdob    <xsl:value-of select="$sdob"/>             
     </xsl:template>          Now this is APPARENTLY a xslt-1 function,
but the reference I had been using for this is
http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/xpath_functions.asp it is linked to by a reference that calls these xslt-2 functions.
Maybe they are mixed xslt-1 and xslt-2 functions?
How am I supposed to know?
Where is a good (plain and simple, easy to read) reference for xsl, so i know which functions are which?
Anyone got a good answer to that question?