Stylesheet and Document Loaders

xsl:import, xsl:include and the XSLT document() function need external files. The processor never fetches anything by itself: you configure a synchronous stylesheet loader and a document loader that return a Document or an XML string. See the API Reference for the rest of the API.

Contents

• Using xsl:import and xsl:include
  • Node.js example (filesystem loader)
  • Advanced: the engine accessor
• Using the document() function
  • Import vs Include Behavior

Using xsl:import and xsl:include

To use xsl:import and xsl:include elements in your stylesheets, configure a stylesheet loader that tells the processor how to fetch external stylesheets.

Call processor.setStylesheetLoader(...)beforeimportStylesheet() - references are resolved while the main stylesheet is being compiled, so a loader set afterwards is too late for that stylesheet (it still applies to the next importStylesheet() call).

The loader is synchronous. It receives the resolved href and the baseUri of the importing stylesheet, and must return either a Document or an XML string (which is parsed automatically). Promises are not awaited, so pre-load remote stylesheets before importing.

import { XSLTProcessor } from '@tradik/xslt-processor';

const processor = new XSLTProcessor();

// Pre-loaded stylesheets, keyed by resolved URI
const stylesheets = {
  '/styles/base.xsl': baseXslText,
  '/styles/utils.xsl': utilsXslText,
};

processor.setStylesheetLoader((href, baseUri) => {
  // href:    resolved URI of the xsl:import/xsl:include target
  // baseUri: URI of the importing stylesheet (the stylesheetUri you passed in)
  const xml = stylesheets[href];
  if (!xml) {
    throw new Error(`Unknown stylesheet: ${href} (from ${baseUri})`);
  }
  return xml; // a Document is also accepted
});

// The second argument is the base URI used to resolve relative hrefs
processor.importStylesheet(mainStylesheet, '/styles/main.xsl');

If you need remote stylesheets in the browser, fetch them first and hand the loader a ready-made map:

const hrefs = ['/styles/base.xsl', '/styles/utils.xsl'];
const texts = await Promise.all(
  hrefs.map((href) => fetch(href).then((response) => response.text())),
);
const cache = Object.fromEntries(hrefs.map((href, i) => [href, texts[i]]));

processor.setStylesheetLoader((href) => cache[href]);
processor.importStylesheet(mainStylesheet, '/styles/main.xsl');

Node.js example (filesystem loader)

Node.js has no DOM, so bring one such as jsdom. XML strings returned by a loader are parsed with the global DOMParser, which therefore has to be set (or make the loader return a Document itself).

import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import path from 'node:path';
import { JSDOM } from 'jsdom';
import { XSLTProcessor } from '@tradik/xslt-processor';

const { window } = new JSDOM('');
globalThis.DOMParser = window.DOMParser; // used to parse the loader's strings

const parser = new DOMParser();
const mainPath = path.resolve('./styles/main.xsl');

const processor = new XSLTProcessor();

processor.setStylesheetLoader((href) => {
  // href is already resolved against the importing stylesheet's URI
  return readFileSync(href, 'utf8'); // returned XML string is parsed for you
});

const mainStylesheet = parser.parseFromString(
  readFileSync(mainPath, 'utf8'),
  'application/xml',
);

processor.importStylesheet(mainStylesheet, mainPath);

const xml = parser.parseFromString(readFileSync('./data.xml', 'utf8'), 'application/xml');
const result = processor.transformToDocument(xml);
console.log(new window.XMLSerializer().serializeToString(result));

Advanced: the engine accessor

After importStylesheet(), processor.engine exposes the underlying XsltEngine for advanced inspection (output settings, compiled templates). It is null before the first import, which is why the loader must be configured through processor.setStylesheetLoader(...) rather than processor.engine.

Using the document() function

The XSLT document() function loads additional XML documents at transformation time. Configure a synchronous document loader with processor.setDocumentLoader(...); it receives the resolved URI and the base URI and returns a Document, an XML string (parsed automatically) or null.

Semantics:

• document('') returns the stylesheet itself, per the XSLT 1.0 specification.
• A node-set argument loads one document per node and returns their union.
• Relative URIs are resolved against the stylesheetUri passed to importStylesheet(); fragment identifiers are ignored.
• Without a loader, or when the loader returns null, document() evaluates to an empty node-set instead of failing the transformation.
• Each resolved URI is loaded once and cached for the life of the processor.

import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { XSLTProcessor } from '@tradik/xslt-processor';

const processor = new XSLTProcessor();

processor.setDocumentLoader((uri) => {
  // uri is already resolved against the stylesheet URI (here /styles/...)
  try {
    return readFileSync(uri, 'utf8'); // XML string is parsed for you
  } catch {
    return null; // -> empty node-set, the transformation keeps going
  }
});

processor.importStylesheet(mainStylesheet, '/styles/main.xsl');
const result = processor.transformToDocument(xmlDoc);

<xsl:template match="/">
  <rate><xsl:value-of select="document('rates.xml')/rates/eur"/></rate>
</xsl:template>

Import vs Include Behavior

• xsl:include: Merges templates at the same precedence level. If multiple templates match, priority attribute decides.
• xsl:import: Imported templates have lower precedence than importing stylesheet. The importing stylesheet's templates always win over imported ones with the same match pattern.

<!-- main.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:import href="base.xsl"/>  <!-- imported templates have lower precedence -->
  <xsl:include href="utils.xsl"/> <!-- included templates have same precedence -->

  <xsl:template match="item">
    <!-- This template overrides the one from base.xsl -->
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>