News

At XML Web Services One: New XSLT debugging traits in eXcelon tool

• By Jack Vaughan
• June 8, 2002

[UPDATED JUNE 9, 2002] -- As XML gains in use, the prevalence of XSLT processors that transform XML into various useful formats grows. Learning and then using this technology can be a highly iterative process, although new tools are expected to play a constructive role in enlarging XSLT use.

Software from eXcelon, which was released at the XML Web Services One expo in San Jose, Calif., is intended to speed XSLT development. Stylus Studio Release 4 adds XML schema diagramming and debugging support for the Apache Xalan J XSLT processor. Debugging enhancements include offline stack trace with back mapping, which automatically associates a defect with the related piece of XSLT source code.

It can be quite difficult to figure out the execution path in XSLT, said Jon Bachman, vice president of XML products at eXcelon. Tools will help with XSLT, he added.

"XSLT is almost a full Turing language, but people don't treat it that way," said Bachman. For enterprises to be successful, he insisted, “you can't do this by hand.”

Also reported by eXcelon: A deal with search software expert Verity to provide a new search engine add-on to eXcelon’s native XML DBMS.

With the growing need to search unstructured and structured data across multiple data sources (one of the main target applications of eXcelon's XIS XML data management system), the need for more flexible search mechanisms becomes more acute, comments Bachman.

"People need to get homogeneous results from heterogeneous databases,” said Bachman. Hence the deal with Verity.