Chapter 365. XSLT Component

xslt:templateName[?options]

The URI format contains templateName, which can be one of the following:

You can append query options to the URI in the following format:

?option=value&option=value&…​

Refer to the Spring Documentation for more detail of the URI syntax.

For Camel 2.8 or older, Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
    <artifactId>camel-spring</artifactId>
    <version>x.x.x</version>
    <!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
</dependency>

From Camel 2.9 onwards the XSLT component is provided directly in the camel-core.

The XSLT component supports 9 options which are listed below.

The XSLT endpoint is configured using URI syntax:

xslt:resourceUri

with the following path and query parameters:

The following format is an expample of using an XSLT template to formulate a response for a message for InOut message exchanges (where there is a JMSReplyTo header)

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("xslt:com/acme/mytransform.xsl");

If you want to use InOnly and consume the message and send it to another destination you could use the following route:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("xslt:com/acme/mytransform.xsl").
  to("activemq:Another.Queue");

By default, all headers are added as parameters which are then available in the XSLT.
To make the parameters useable, you will need to declare them.

<setHeader headerName="myParam"><constant>42</constant></setHeader>
<to uri="xslt:MyTransform.xsl"/>

The parameter also needs to be declared in the top level of the XSLT for it to be available:

<xsl: ...... >

   <xsl:param name="myParam"/>

    <xsl:template ...>

To use the above examples in Spring XML you would use something like the following code:

  <camelContext xmlns="http://activemq.apache.org/camel/schema/spring">
    <route>
      <from uri="activemq:My.Queue"/>
      <to uri="xslt:org/apache/camel/spring/processor/example.xsl"/>
      <to uri="activemq:Another.Queue"/>
    </route>
  </camelContext>

To see an example, look at the test case along with its Spring XML.

Camel 2.2 or older
If you use xsl:include in your XSL files in Camel 2.2 or older, the default javax.xml.transform.URIResolver is used. Files will be resolved relative to the JVM starting folder.

For example the following include statement will look up the staff_template.xsl file starting from the folder where the application was started.

<xsl:include href="staff_template.xsl"/>

Camel 2.3 or newer
For Camel 2.3 or newer, Camel provides its own implementation of URIResolver. This allows Camel to load included files from the classpath.

For example the include file in the following code will be located relative to the starting endpoint.

<xsl:include href="staff_template.xsl"/>

This means that Camel will locate the file in the classpath as org/apache/camel/component/xslt/staff_template.xsl

You can use classpath: or file: to instruct Camel to look either in the classpath or file system. If you omit the prefix then Camel uses the prefix from the endpoint configuration. If no prefix is specified in the endpoint configuration, the default is classpath:.

You can also refer backwards in the include paths. In the following example, the xsl file will be resolved under org/apache/camel/component.

    <xsl:include href="../staff_other_template.xsl"/>

In Camel 2.10.3 and older, classpath: is used as the default prefix.
If you configure the starting resource to load using file: then all subsequent incudes will have to be prefixed with file:.

From Camel 2.10.4, Camel will use the prefix from the endpoint configuration as the default prefix.

You can explicitly specify file: or classpath: loading. The two loading types can be mixed in a XSLT script, if necessary.

Since Saxon 9.2, writing extension functions has been supplemented by a new mechanism, referred to as integrated extension functions you can now easily use camel as shown in the below example:

SimpleRegistry registry = new SimpleRegistry();
registry.put("function1", new MyExtensionFunction1());
registry.put("function2", new MyExtensionFunction2());

CamelContext context = new DefaultCamelContext(registry);
context.addRoutes(new RouteBuilder() {
    @Override
    public void configure() throws Exception {
        from("direct:start")
            .to("xslt:org/apache/camel/component/xslt/extensions/extensions.xslt?saxonExtensionFunctions=#function1,#function2");
    }
});

With Spring XML:

<bean id="function1" class="org.apache.camel.component.xslt.extensions.MyExtensionFunction1"/>
<bean id="function2" class="org.apache.camel.component.xslt.extensions.MyExtensionFunction2"/>

<camelContext xmlns="http://camel.apache.org/schema/spring">
  <route>
    <from uri="direct:extensions"/>
    <to uri="xslt:org/apache/camel/component/xslt/extensions/extensions.xslt?saxonExtensionFunctions=#function1,#function2"/>
  </route>
</camelContext>

To provide a dynamic stylesheet at runtime you can define a dynamic URI. See How to use a dynamic URI in to() for more information.

Available as of Camel 2.9 (removed in 2.11.4, 2.12.3 and 2.13.0)
Camel provides the CamelXsltResourceUri header which you can use to define an alternative stylesheet to that configured on the endpoint URI. This allows you to provide a dynamic stylesheet at runtime.

Available as of Camel 2.14

From Camel 2.14, any warning/error or fatalError is stored on the current Exchange as a property with the keys Exchange.XSLT_ERROR, Exchange.XSLT_FATAL_ERROR, or Exchange.XSLT_WARNING which allows end users to get hold of any errors happening during transformation.

For example in the stylesheet below, we want to terminate if a staff has an empty dob field. And to include a custom error message using xsl:message.

<xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
    <body>
      <xsl:for-each select="staff/programmer">
        <p>Name: <xsl:value-of select="name"/><br />
          <xsl:if test="dob=''">
            <xsl:message terminate="yes">Error: DOB is an empty string!</xsl:message>
          </xsl:if>
        </p>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </body>
  </html>
</xsl:template>

The exception is stored on the Exchange as a warning with the key Exchange.XSLT_WARNING.

Here are some observations from Sameer, a Camel user, which he kindly shared with us:

In case anybody faces issues with the XSLT endpoint please review these points.

I was trying to use an xslt endpoint for a simple transformation from one xml to another using a simple xsl. The output xml kept appearing (after the xslt processor in the route) with outermost xml tag with no content within.

No explanations show up in the DEBUG logs. On the TRACE logs however I did find some error/warning indicating that the XMLConverter bean could no be initialized.

After a few hours of cranking my mind, I had to do the following to get it to work (thanks to some posts on the users forum that gave some clue):

My guess is that the default xml parsing mechanism supplied within the JDK (I am using 1.6.0_03) does not work right in this context and does not throw up any error either. When I switched to Xalan this way it works. This is not a Camel issue, but might need a mention on the xslt component page.

Another note, jdk 1.6.0_03 ships with JAXB 2.0 while Camel needs 2.1. One workaround is to add the 2.1 jar to the jre/lib/endorsed directory for the jvm or as specified by the container.

Hope this post saves newbie Camel riders some time.