XSLT producing different results via debugger and xslt.Transform()

Question

I'm producing the body of an email via an xsl. I've been having a problem with the html nested inside a <table> tag not displaying correctly. With a bit of help from the good folks over at the asp.net forums, I've tracked the problem down to getting
different results if I run the xsl via the debugger or via a compiled transform.
When I debug the xsl it produces
      <table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
        <tr>
          <th width="50%" align="center"><b>Issue</b></th>
          <th width="50%" align="center"><b>Resolution</b></th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>Missing Acknowledgement date</td>
          <td><p> Test test</p></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>Missing Agent and/or Seller signature</td>
    </table>
And that's absolutely correct and displays perfectly if I save the result as an html file. But when I use xslt.Transform(..), where xslt is a compiled transform, it produces
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
            <tr><th width="50%" align="center"><b>Issue</b></th><th width="50%" align="center"><b>Resolution</b></th></tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    Missing Acknowledgement date
                </td>
                <td></td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </p><p> Test test</p></td></tr><tr>
        <td>Missing Agent and/or Seller signature</td>
        <td>
    </table>
And to make it even more interesting, that extra </table> tag and the misplaced table data only occur on the first table row, but the table rows are generated by an xsl:for-each.
The relevant bit of the xsl is:
          <table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
            <tr>
              <th width="50%" align="center">
                <b>Issue</b>
              </th>
              <th width="50%" align="center">
                <b>Resolution</b>
              </th>
            </tr>
            <xsl:for-each select="emailbody/checklist/item">
              <xsl:if test="string-length(select='issue')>0">
                <tr>
                  <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="issue" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
                  </td>
                  <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="resolution" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </xsl:if>
             </xsl:for-each>
          </table>
The code that generates the compiled transform and the (incorrect) output is:
            Dim xslt As XslCompiledTransform = New XslCompiledTransform(True)
            'Dim xslt As XslTransform = New XslTransform
            xslt.Load(templatePath) 
            Dim objStream As Stream = New MemoryStream(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData))
            Dim strbldrXML As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
            Dim objXmlReader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(objStream)
            Dim objXmlWriter As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(strbldrXML)
            xslt.Transform(objXmlReader, objXmlWriter)
I've checked that templatePath is pointing to the right file, and the source file I'm debugging the xsl against was copied from the xmlData parameter, so I know the same stuff is getting fed into it.
I've been chasing this for days, and I'm about ready to quit and go get a job at a fast food joint. I'm not wonderful with xsl in general, or xsl in .NET in particular. Somebody PLEASE tell me I'm doing something stupid....
Rebecca M. Riordan

Answer 1

Thanks for the replay, Fred, but that wasn't the problem.
I still don't know what the problem was, but in putting together a sample for review, I cleaned up the code a little (I inherited this), and while it
appears to be functionally identical, it's working now. Since we're scheduled to go live on Friday, I'm gonna just take the win ;)
In the unlikely event that anybody's curious, the original, non-functional code, looked like this:
Public Function createEmailBody(ByVal templateType As String, ByVal xmlData As String) As String
            Dim templatePath, emailBody As String
            templatePath = Me.templatePath & "\" & templateType & ".xsl"
            Dim xpd As New XPathDocument(New StringReader(xmlData))
            Dim xslt As XslCompiledTransform = New XslCompiledTransform(False)
            xslt.Load(templatePath)
            Dim objStream As Stream = New MemoryStream(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData))
            Dim strbldrXML As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
            Dim objXmlReader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(objStream)
            Dim objXmlWriter As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(strbldrXML)
            xslt.Transform(objXmlReader, objXmlWriter)
            emailBody = strbldrXML.ToString()
            Return emailBody
End Function
In cleaning it up, I wrote this:
Public Function createEmailBody(ByVal templateType As String, ByVal xmlData As String) As String
            Dim xslt As XslCompiledTransform = New XslCompiledTransform(False)
            Dim templatePath As String = Me.templatePath & templateType & ".xsl"
            xslt.Load(templatePath)
            Dim reader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(New MemoryStream(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData)))
            Dim outSB As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
            Dim writer As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(outSB)
            xslt.Transform(reader, writer)
            Dim emailBody As String = outSB.ToString()
            Return emailBody
End Function
As I said, they look functionally identical to me, but obviously they're not, because the second one works....
Rebecca M. Riordan