Why Saxon does not produce any file output?

Question

XSLT parsers should produce an empty file even if there is no explicit text output. However, I have a situation where Saxon-HE 9.3 does not produce any file output at all.

I compiled the files using this command:

Transform -s:1.xml -xsl:2.xsl -o:3.html

Whereby the contents of 1.xml is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- greeting.xml -->
<x>
<greeting>1</greeting><greeting>2</greeting>
</x>

And the contents of 2.xsl is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- greeting3.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" 
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="html"/>

  <xsl:template match="/"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

However, there is no output (not even an empty file). Neither is there any error message.

What could have been the problem?

Post a minimal example of the XML and the XSLT and we might be able to help. It is likely that your template matches and/or XPaths are not matching the XML structure, but there could be any number of reasons (case sensitivity, type-o, namespace mis-match, etc). — Mads Hansen
1.xml and 2.xsl -- what do they contain? It is not just serious to say: "My program X when given the input Y produces no output" and not to show either X or Y -- regardles of the programming language your program is written in. — Dimitre Novatchev

Michael Kay Michael Kay · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-10T09:35:52

It's perfectly possible for a transformation to be 100% correct and yet produce no output. Here's an example stylesheet that does just that:

<xsl:template match="/"/>

So the conjecture is that there's a bug in your code, and if you want us to help you find it, you'll need to show us your code.

Why Saxon does not produce any file output?

2 Answers