LotusXSL                                                                                                                         | Overview | FAQ | Requirements | Discussion |
Update: [07/06/99] LotusXSL v0.17.3 supports the April 24 W3C XSLT Working Draft. This release provides a XSLT servlet, plus many bug fixes. OVERVIEW
XSL provides a mechanism for formatting and transforming XML, either at the browser or on the server. It allows the developer to take the abstract data semantics of an XML instance and transform it into a presentation language such as HTML. LotusXSL implements an XSL processor in Java, and can interface to APIs that conform to the October 1 Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification. The processor can be used from the command line or from an wrapper applet, or it can be used as a submodule of other programs, and accessed via the API. FAQ What is LotusXSL? Lotus and IBM are making available an experimental implementation of an XSL processor. The XSL specification is being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XSL provides powerful facilities for formatting and transformation of XML documents. The LotusXSL processor is written in Java and conforms to the construction rules features of the draft XSL specification released by the W3C today. LotusXSL is packaged as a JavaBean for use in client or server applications, as an applet for use in Java-enabled web browsers, and as a command-line Java program. Why is this announcement significant? The LotusXSL processor is designed to help our customers and others in the web community gain early experience with the very latest XSL technology. This announcement also highlights both Lotus' and IBM's active role in advancing openstandards such as W3C's XML and XSL. What problems is the LotusXSL processor designed to solve? LotusXSL implements the "construction rules" features of the XSL specification. Using simple style sheets, users can specify rules for transforming an input XML file into some other form of XML. A common use of LotusXSL is to transform XML into HTML for display in web browsers. Are you going to turn LotusXSL into a product? The W3C will not be releasing a final version of an XSL specification for several more months. We will consider releasing a processor in product form once the W3C arrives at a "recommended" version of an XSL specification. What are the terms of the license for LotusXSL on Alphaworks. LotusXSL has a similar commercial source agreement as XML4J. What about future enhancements to LotusXSL? Both Lotus and IBM continue to actively participate in the ongoing development of the XSL standard and expect over time to deliver a variety of offerings in support of those standards. Regarding LotusXSL in particular, we will consider further enhancement as revisions to the W3C specification become available. This processor is developed by Lotus, is IBM also endorsing this work? IBM is making extensive use of LotusXSL internally, and is coordinating the public availability of this technology through Alphaworks. Like the XML4J parser, which is also available from Alphaworks, LotusXSL is IBM's showcase implementation of an emerging technology from the W3C. Why did IBM chose to release a Lotus-developed implementation of XSL? Alphaworks is hosting the best XML technologies from IBM and affiliated laboratories around the world. How is Lotus participating in the development of XSL? Both Lotus and IBM maintain and fund memberships in the W3C, each has their own representatives in the associated standards committees, and each is investing directly in technologies such as XSL. This processor is a result of Lotus' work on XSL. Will Lotus be using XML its products? Lotus already supports XML in a number of products, including Domino R5, eSuite and SmartSuite. Today's delivery of LotusXSL on Alphaworks is another example of Lotus' continuing investment in key XML technologies and standards activities. We have previously stated our intention to add features for moving XML in and out of Domino. Additional details will be provided at a future date. Will Lotus or IBM be using XSL in its products? Neither Lotus nor IBM is not making any product announcement at this time. Are you releasing source code for LotusXSL? Yes! The W3C draft also defines "flow objects" for XML formatting. Have you implemented these? Not at this time. The construction rules features provided by LotusXSL are useful for transforming XML and for producing HTML. Implementation of the flow objects is a substantially separate effort which we may undertake at some point in the future. REQUIREMENTS Click here to view the Installation Procedures LotusXSL Platform Requirements Platform Any Java enabled platform Java Tool JDK or JRE-1.1x or 1.2.x, or Microsoft's Java VM Java Jar Files XML Parser for Java.

1. Install Sun's JDK-1.2 or Sun's JRE-1.2.

2. Install Version 1.1.16 or 2.0.11 of IBM's XML for Java

3. Unzip Lotus XSL Processor to your hard drive (Assuming you haven't already).

4. Either have XML4J on the system class path, or copy the XML4J jar into the LotusXSL directory. I recommend having it on the system class path. To install XML4J and LotusXSL onto the system class path, do something like:

   set CLASSPATH=c:\lotusxsl\js.jar;c:\xml4j_1_1_16\xml4j_1_1_16.jar;c:\lotusxsl\LotusXSL.jar in your autoexec.bat.

To test, you can go into the 'testSuite\xml4j1tx' directory and type 'test accp accp01'. You should see it process the files with no complaints. If it does, you may have to adjust the command name or classpath setup in the batch file.

In the LotusXSL root directory there is a 'run' batch file, which you pass command line parameters. These instructions are to use 1.1.16 of XML4J. To use XML4J 2.0.11 you'll need to change the batch files to call:
com.lotus.xsl.xml4j2dom.XML4JLiaison4dom or com.lotus.xsl.xml4j2tx.XML4JLiaison, depending on if you want to use the new DOM classes or the TX compatibility classes.

The command line utility is com.lotus.xsl.xml4j.ProcessXSL. It can take the following command line switches:

-IN inputXMLURL
-XSL XSLTransformationURL
-OUT outputFileName
-PARSER fully qualified class name of parser liaison
-E (Do not expand entity refs)
-V (Version info)
-QC (Quiet Pattern Conflicts Warnings)
-Q (Quiet Mode)
-LF (Use linefeeds only on output {default is CR/LF})
-CR (Use carriage returns only on output {default is CR/LF})
-ESCAPE (Which characters to escape {default is <>&\"\'\\r\\n}
-INDENT (Control how many spaces to indent {default is 0})
-TT (Trace the templates as they are being called.)
-TS (Trace each select.)
-TTC (Trace the template children as they are being processed.)
-VALIDATE (Set whether validation occurs. Validation is off by default.)
-EDUMP (Do stackdump on error.
-XML (Use XML formatter and add XML header.)
-TEXT (Use simple Text formatter.)
-HTML (Use HTML formatter.)
-PARAM name expression (Set a stylesheet parameter)

There are now UNIX Bourne shell script files:

run.sh

run processor (with 1.1.16 version of XML4J) in the form of: run -in foo.xml -xsl foo.xsl -out foo.out

testSuite/xml4j14/test.sh

Test LotusXSL with XML4J 1.1.16.

testSuite/xml4j2dom/test.sh

Test LotusXSL with XML4J 2.0.11 Generic DOM.

testSuite/xml4j2tx/test.sh

Test LotusXSL with XML4J 2.0.11 TX compatibility classes.

You may have to edit these in order to have the correct path to the XML4J jars. There are, of course, corresponding .bat files.

File	Size	Comments
lotusxsl_0_17_3.zip	1140 KB	ZIP file containing LotusXSL v0.17.3 (compatible with XML4J v2.0.11and remains compatible with XML4J 1.1.16). Commercial Source and installation instructions.
lotusxsl_0_16_5.zip	1056 KB	ZIP file containing LotusXSL v0.16.5 (compatible with XML4J 2.0.9 and remains compatible with XML4J 1.1.16). Commercial Source and installation instructions.
LotusXSLComercialLicense.lic	32 KB	(Commercial License) Download this license file if you want to distribute LotusXSL Commercially