[xsl] document() question

Subject: [xsl] document() question
From: Joerg Pietschmann <joerg.pietschmann@xxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 18:45:15 +0200
Hello all

The spec for the document() function states:
"If there is an error retrieving the ressource, then the XSLT processor
may signal an error; if it does not signal an error, it must recover
by returning an empty node set."
So far, so good.
I want to write a style sheet which retrieves some data from external
documents, however, i don't want the processor to signal an error if the
ressource can not be found. Instead, i want to handle this in the style
sheet. I tried to supply a somewhat twisted URIResolver to the processor
(Saxon 6.3), but it seems i have to feed it some valid XML. I was
successful using a StringReader("<dummy/>"). This raises two problems:
- I have to test for two error conditions: document() may return a node
  set with the "dummy" element node in case the ressource was not found,
  and i have also to test for an empty node set in case something else
  went wrong (for processors which don't raise errors).
- It violates the design principle of not to use magic constants.

Question(s): Is there a way to write an URIResolver so that document()
will return an empty node set in some specific cases?
Is there a better, portable way to silence a processor about missing
ressources in invocations of the document() function? (Note: a "File
exists" extension function is not (yet) portable and in any case subject
to subtle failures due to race conditions.) Or for some other error
conditions for that matter, like ressources not containing well formed XML,
or missing external DTDs.
  
Last Note: The XSLT 2.0 usage of document() for multiple output has even
more failure modes than the applications for reading. This will become
 *really* interesting.

Regards

J.Pietschmann
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