Re: [xsl] Is it OK for xsl:output to affect the construction of an unserialized result tree?

[Barry Lay <blay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would find this sort of behaviour non-intuitive.  Using the JAXP API 
the attributes in the xsl:output element show up in the output 
properties of the transformer.  In fact I have been able to reformat an 
XML document using a null transform and setting the property:

           StreamResult result = new StreamResult( new 
FileWriter(projectBase + fileName) );
           TransformerFactory tFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
           Transformer transformer = tFactory.newTransformer();
           transformer.setOutputProperty( "indent", "yes" );
           transformer.transform( source, result );

I would guess that the serialization stage is interpreting the output 
properties.  I am using Saxon so Michael Kay could confirm that this is 
true but I would be surprised (and a bit miffed) if it inserted text 
nodes into the result if "result" were a DOM. I don't know if there is a 
suitable place to put the output instructions in a DOM - they may just 
go away in that case.

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:

> We should note that the general issue of whether the xsl:output can 
> affect the construction of the result tree goes beyond the specific 
> case cited here. For instance, if it is OK for xsl:output to do this, 
> then one might imagine that <xsl:output indent="yes"/> could lead to 
> the insertion of additional text nodes in the result tree, though to 
> my knowledge no XSLT processor yet does that.