Re: [xsl] Newbie question on XSL transformations: multiple sorts on element attributes

[Abel Braaksma <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rob Newman wrote:
> Abel and others,
>
> Thanks so much for the prompt response and help! I really appreciate it.
> You are correct that my syntax was incorrect. Unfortunately the 
> solution you gave me also seg faults.
> The XSLT processor I am using is xsltproc (from the command line). It 
> does not give me any useful error output aside from "Segmentation 
> fault'. Would you recommend using a different processor?

Well, that's a question I like to answer, but I am a bit reluctant doing 
so, because of the possibility of a "who's the best" discussion. 
However, here's a go: if you stick to XSLT 1.0, there are quite enough 
processors around you can choose from, and xsltproc is one of them. 
Saxon, which has my preference, has a very good error notification, 
which helps me a lot while designing XSLT (in your example case: it 
pointed at the exact location of the syntax error)

If you go to XSLT 2, there are currently three choices (iirc), of which 
Saxon 8 is the most standards compliant and stable. Others are Gestalt 
and AltovaXml. All have free or open source versions, but licenses 
differ. Saxon 8B works from Java and .NET and is open source, Gestalt 
works with Eiffel (which, I believe, also works with .NET) and is also 
open source, and AltovaXml only comes as a binary for Windows, I believe.

Last thing I heard is that Gestalt is getting closer to compliancy, 
Saxon is very-veryclose and AltovaXml, well, search the list for earlier 
discussions, but there is no documentation or list that shows its real 
status and different users have different experiences.

-- Abel