First Draft of XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.1 Draft Published

The XSL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.1. This specification defines the syntax and semantics of XSLT 2.1, a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents. The main focus for enhancements in XSLT 2.1 is the requirement to enable streaming of source documents. This is needed when source documents become too large to hold in main memory, and also for applications where it is important to start delivering results before the entire source document is available. The approach adopted in this specification is twofold: it identifies a set of restrictions which, if followed by stylesheet authors, will enable implementations to adopt a streaming mode of operation without placing excessive demands on the optimization capabilities of the processor; and it provides new constructs to indicate that streaming is required, or to express transformations in a way that makes it easier for the processor to adopt a streaming execution plan. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.