NewTransformer - Could not compile stylesheet exception

Question

Using the following code:
Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer( new StreamSource(xsltFile) );
If I fill the xsltFile string variable with "contents.xslt" it goes through fine.
But, if I put the following into the xsltFile variable, it throws the following exception:
"C:\\test\\src\\xslt\\contents.xslt"
Failed to transform file C:\DB Documenter\output\xml\main.xml due to: javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException: Could not compile stylesheet
I am formatting the the source and result strings in the actual transform the same way, and they work fine pointing to a c:\ directory. Any reason this blows up on the newTransformer call?
Here is the whole code:
public void performTransform(String xsltFile, String xmlFile, String htmlFile) {       
try {           
TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
/* xsltFile = "contents.xslt"; */
xsltFile = "C:\\DB Documenter\\src\\xslt\\contents.xslt";
Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer( new StreamSource(xsltFile) );
StreamSource xmlSource = new StreamSource(xmlFile);
StreamResult htmlResult = new StreamResult(htmlFile);
transformer.transform(xmlSource, htmlResult);
} catch (Exception e) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Failed to transform file " + xmlFile + " due to: " + e);
}

Answer 1

StreamSource/Results are simple POJOs: the interpretation of the the system ID you construct them from is left to the interpretation of the object that will use them. This is why the behavior is not consistent.
For this reason, I never use StreamSource/Result(String) constructors but prefer either the constructor that takes a File or a Reader.