To perform a transformation, you can call Xalan-C++ from the command line (or script), or from within an application (see Usage Patterns).

The testXSLT executable provides a command-line interface for performing XSL transformation. To perform a transformation from the command line or a script, do the following:

1. Download Xalan-C++.
   
   
2. Set the path to include the build directory.
   
   
3. Call the testXSLT executable with the appropriate flags and arguments (described below). The following command line, for example, includes the -IN, -XSL, and -OUT flags with their accompanying arguments -- the XML source document, the XSL stylesheet, and the output file:
   
   testXSLT -IN foo.xml -XSL foo.xsl -OUT foo.out

The command line utility can take the following flags and arguments (the flags are case insensitive):

	-IN inputXMLURL -XSL XSLTransformationURL -OUT outputFileName -ESCAPE chars(Which characters to escape -- default is <>&"'\r\n) -EER (Expand entity references --default is not to expand) -V (Version info) -QC (Quiet Pattern Conflicts Warnings) -Q (Quiet Mode) -INDENT (Number of spaces to indent each level in output tree --default is 0) -VALIDATE (Validate the XSL and XML input -- default is not to validate) -TT (Trace the templates as they are being called) -TG (Trace each result tree generation event) -TS (Trace each selection event) -TTC (Trace the template children as they are being processed) -XML (Use XML formatter and add XML header) The -XML flag must be set:   -NH (Don't write XML header) -HTML (Use HTML formatter) The -HTML flag must be set:   -NOINDENT (turns off HTML indenting) The -XML or -HTML flag must be set:   -STRIPCDATA (Strip CDATA sections of their brackets, but do not escape)   -ESCAPECDATA (Strip CDATA sections of their brackets, and escape) -TEXT (Use simple Text formatter) -DOM (Test for well-formed output --format to DOM then to XML for output) -PARAM name expression (Set a stylesheet parameter)

Use -IN to specify the XML source document.

Use -XSL to specify the XSL stylesheet file.

Use -TEXT if you want the output to include only text nodes without any escaping.

Use -HTML to write 4.0 transitional HTML (some elements, such as <br>, are not well formed XML).

To set stylesheet parameters from the command line, use
testXSLT -PARAM name expression
To set the parameter to a string value, enclose the string in single quotes (') to make it an expression.

You can set up the International Components for Unicode (ICU) to enhance the support that Xalan-C++ provides for encoding, number formatting, and sorting. For more information, see Using the ICU.

If you have built and integrated the ICU with Xerces-C++, testXSLT (like any Xalan-C++ application) automatically uses ICU support for output encoding. See Building ICU for Xerces-C++.

The testXSLT executable also conditionally includes ICU support for number formatting and sorting. Look in process.cpp for the #if defined(XALAN_USE_ICU) blocks. In these blocks, process.cpp #includes the ICUBridge headers, and substitutes ICU support for xsl:number, format-number(), and xsl:sort. To activate this support:

1. Download and build the ICU (see Using the ICU).
   
   
2. Rebuild testXSLT with the ICU enabled (see below).

Rebuilding TestXSLT in Windows
	Uncomment the #define XALAN_USE_ICU in process.cpp. Add ICUBridge to the Visual C++ list of dependencies for the TestXSLT project. Build TestXSLT.exe.

Rebuilding testXSLT in UNIX

In the Linux, AIX, HP-UX 11, and Solaris builds, the ICUBridge is in the core Xalan library (libxalan-c1_2.so in Linux; libxalan-c1_2.a in AIX; libxalan-c1_2.sl in HP-UX 11; libxalan-c1_2.so in Solaris), so you must rebuild this library along with testXSLT. Before you do the build, define the XALAN_USE_ICU environment variable. For information about defining this environment variable and doing a build, see Steps for doing a UNIX build. The make file uses the XALAN_USE_ICU environment variable to do the equivalent of a #define and to add ICUBridge to the list of dependencies for testXSLT. If you uncomment the #define XALAN_USE_ICU statement in process.cpp (which is the right thing to do in Windows), you will get an error in AIX ("The macro 'XALAN_USE_ICU' has already been defined"), an error in HP-UX 11 ("Redefinition of macro 'XALAN-USE_ICU' differs from previous definition"), or a warning in Linux or Solaris about duplicate settings when you run the make, and testXSLT does not link with ICUBridge.