[xsl] Source code formatting

["Willem Van Lishout willemvanlishout@xxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi list,

Like many of you, I assume, I use a version control system when working on
XSLT projects. I'm working together with multiple people, and we run the
code through an XML formatter before checking it in to avoid formatting
differences showing up in the diffs.

The problem is that, due to attribute value normalization, carriage returns
are removed from attribute nodes during XML parsing. When using long XPath
expressions (and this has become very common in XSLT 3, especially with
higher order functions), which are split in multiple lines, this results in
huge single line outputs which are impossible to read.

It seems any sort of XML processing will irreversibly transform the
whitespace, therefore I have to choose between:
- No formatting
- Formatting using non-XML tools?
- Finding a parser that bends the rules...

Have any of you experienced the same problem and did you find a solution?

Thanks.

Willem Van Lishout
willemvanlishout@xxxxxxxxx