The Usage of XALAN

The basic steps required to use XALAN are below:

1. Instantiate javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory

TransformerFactory is an abstract class. It has a static method netInstance() to create an instance of TransformerFactory. This method instantiates the concrete subclass designated by the javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory system property.

The default setting for this system property is org.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl.

TransformerFactory tFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();

2. Use instance of TransformerFactory to get an instance of javax.xml.transform.Transformer from your stylesheet source.

The TransformerFactory’s newTransformer(Source xslSource) method processes the stylesheet Source into a Templates object and returns a Transformer that you can use to perform a transformation. You can provide different input sources to this method.

• You can provide a DOMSource
• You can provide  a StreamSource
• You can also provide a SAXSource

StreamSource source = new StreamSource(stylesheetURI);

3. Perform the transformation using javax.xml.transform.Transformer instance.

Use the Transformer transform(Source xmlSource, Result transformResult) method to transform the XML Source and place the transformation output in a Result object.

Like Step2, you can supply the XML Source in the form of a StreamSource, DOMSource, or SAXSource. Likewise, the Result may be a StreamResult, DOMResult, or SAXResult.

Transformer transformer = tFactory.newTransformer(source);

            StreamSource sourceXML = new StreamSource(xmlfileURI);

            StreamResult result = new StreamResult(outURI);

            transformer.transform(sourceXML, result);

Note: If you plan to use the stylesheet Source to transform multiple XML Sources, you should use the TransformerFactory newTemplates(Source xslSource) method to explicitly generate a Templates object. For each transformation, use the Templates object to generate a new Transformer.

                  TransformerFactory tFactory = TransformerFactoryImpl.newInstance();

            StreamSource source = new StreamSource(stylesheetURI);

            Templates templates = tFactory.newTemplates(source);

            Transformer transformer = templates.newTransformer();

            StreamSource sourceXML = new StreamSource(xmlfileURI);

            StreamResult result = new StreamResult(outURI);

            transformer.transform(sourceXML, result);