Saxon doesn't support `saxon:output` anymore

Question

I'm trying to use Saxon 9.1.0.8 HE to apply (recent) Docbook XSL, and getting this:

Don't know how to chunk with SAXON 9.1.0.8 from Saxonica 
Processing terminated by xsl:message at line 46 in chunker.xsl

Docbook XSL source claims that:

<!-- This stylesheet works with XSLT implementations that support -->
<!-- exsl:document, saxon:output, or Xalan's redirect:write -->
<!-- Note: Only Saxon 6.4.2 or later is supported. -->

...and a visit to line 46 mentioned in the error message (which tests for element-available('saxon:output')), and to Saxon documentation, shows that the root of the problem is that Saxon no longer recognizes the saxon:output extension.

This source suggests that to make Saxon 9.4 compatible with XSLT 1.0 (which is what the stylesheets are in, and what saxon:output used to be good for in the first place), some kind of "backward compatible behavior" must be enabled. But why, and how?

(The docbook stylesheet in question does specify <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:saxon="http://icl.com/saxon">.)

Answer 1

I'm no expert in DocBook, but I believe the Docbook 1.0 stylesheets probably work best with Saxon 6.5.5, and if you want to use the latest Saxon releases (e.g. for performance) then you're probably better off using the Docbook 2.0 stylesheets: see

http://norman.walsh.name/2011/08/25/docbook-xslt-2

Answer 2

If you want to run XSLT 1.0 stylesheets trying to access extensions in the namespace xmlns:saxon="http://icl.com/saxon" then you should use the lastest version of Saxon 6 which is 6.5.5 I think.

Saxon 9 is an XSLT 2.0 processor and I don't think that comment talking about "Saxon 6.4.2 or later" has Saxon 9 in mind, it is solely talking about the Saxon 6.x releases of the XSLT 1.0 processor.

Other than that I agree with Ken, if you want to use Saxon 9 then edit the stylesheets to use the XSLT 2.0 xsl:result-document.

Answer 3

Saxon 9 supports XSLT 2.0, so just use <xsl:result-document> to create multiple result trees.