Java object XSLT parameters problem. JDK vs Xalan.

Question

Hello all,
I need to create a small application which requires to run some transformation interacting with a number of Java classes.
Small example is below: I have a Java class, which I'm going to use within transformation.
package com.example;
public class Document
  private String filename=null;
  public String getFilename() {
    return this.filename;
}and transformation which extracts some information from the passed parameter object
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:document="com.example.Document">
    <xsl:param name="theDocument"/>
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <example>
            <xsl:value-of select="document:getFilename($theDocument)"/>
        </example>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>The code which launches transformation is following:
        try {
            TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
            Templates template = factory.newTemplates(new StreamSource(new FileInputStream(transformationFilename)));
            Source source = new StreamSource(new FileInputStream(theSourceFilename));
            Result result = new StreamResult(new FileOutputStream(theTargetFilename));
            Transformer transformer = template.newTransformer();
            transformer.setParameter("theDocument", theDocument);
            transformer.transform(source, result);
        } catch (TransformerConfigurationException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
    }When I run it I get
ERROR:  'Cannot find external method 'com.example.Document.getFilename' (must be public).'
FATAL ERROR:  'Could not compile stylesheet'at this line
  Templates template = factory.newTemplates(new StreamSource(new FileInputStream(transformationFilename)));I made a test with a variable, when Document instance is not a parameter but an instance created within transformation and assigned to an XSLT variable. Everything works fine in variable case, but not with parameter.
Once I've added Xalan-2.7.1 .jars to the classpath it had been fixed. I guess the issue is described here (yep, I'm using 1.5).
XSLTC does not support all the extensions that Xalan does. These extensions are beyond the definition of the JAXP and XSLT specifications. For those users impacted by this, the work around of downloading the Xalan classes from Apache is still available. Also, going forward we expect to be supporting more and more extensions in XSLTC.
However, I'd like to find Xalan free solution. Could someone explain what is the difference and how implement the same behaviour without using Xalan?
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

georgemc, your answer may not have helped the original poster, but it just helped me out. So, thank you very much.
To clarify, for the benefit of anyone else who encounters this issue, it looks as if a possible cause of the 'Cannot find external method' error is that the transformer is defaulting to something - possibly XSLTC - that does not support certain extension methods. Ensuring that a recent Xalan JAR is in the classpath may resolve the problem.
Edited by: slamci on Mar 13, 2010 11:14 AM