XPath extension functions

[CANDAT Jerome <je...@c-s.fr>]

Hello everyone,

First I will say that I'm totally new to Xalan.

Here is my question.
In fact, I would like to use Xalan only for its Xpath capabilities. 
I have an XML file and would like to use the Xpath functions to 'query' this document without using any XSL capabilities (so without any stylesheet). I just to use the Xalan XPath API from myu own Java code.
I don't think it should be a problem ???

However, in my case, I need to have an ends-with() functions. As it does not exist in the XPath specification I assume it does not exist in Xalan either (I may be wrong since I haven't used Xalan yet but I read many times that Xalan followed the W3C specs,so..).
More, I've read on the Xalan web-site that it was possible to extend the core library of functions that XPath provides.

I was wondering if it was possible to 'declare' my ends-with() function and use it in my XPath expression using the Xalan Xpath APIs as well as if it was a native function (like for example /doc/param[ends-with(@name,'lan')]) ?


Thanks in advance,
Jérôme.