RE: Xalan Extensions: using a single instance rather than new i nstantiation

[Jo...@lotus.com]

>I've been reading this discussion and I've been intrigued. I don't know
>anything about Xalan extension, but do I have this correct, you can call
>Java code inside a stylesheet? If so, what would it be used for?

See the XSLT spec's discussion of extensions (section 14). Extensions can
be used to add functionality to XSLT; additional data manipulation such as
string or numeric calculations are common examples. Theoretically, they
could also be (ab?)used to do things less related to styling, to take
advantage of the XSLT rule engine to drive other proceses directly rather
than focusing on producing an output document.

Extensions are still being standardized. Xalan supports two extension
mechanisms, one which speaks directly to java classes and another which
uses the Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) to support a variety of scripting
languages.