Overview

With the Saxon upgrade to 12.x HE, customers must now implement custom XSLT external functions as Saxon extension-function classes.

Changes in Saxon 12.x HE

• Customers must extend net.sf.saxon.lib.ExtensionFunctionDefinition to implement external functions.

• Functions are defined through a structured contract: QName, argument count or argument types, return type, and runtime call logic.

Required Function Structure

Each custom XSLT external function must be written as a Java class that extends net.sf.saxon.lib.ExtensionFunctionDefinition. The example snippets below use no-argument GUID function named as getNextGUID.

Note: The getNextGUID example uses a no-argument function. Functions with arguments must define the appropriate argument types in getArgumentTypes().

Package Declaration

New extension-function classes should use should use one of the following packages:

• com.adminserver.helper, or

• com.adminserver.dal.helper.

Class Declaration

The class must extend ExtensionFunctionDefinition so that Saxon can discover the function contract and the runtime call implementation.

import net.sf.saxon.lib.ExtensionFunctionDefinition;

public class GetNextGUIDFunction extends ExtensionFunctionDefinition {

// Function contract methods are implemented here.

}