how to load xml from url and apply xsl (xml-stylesheet)

[markpittsnh]

I am using C# to load a url. My URL is an XML document which contains the processing instruction<?xml-Stylesheet type="text/xsl" href=".\CS_Xml_Output.xsl"?>

During development, I was using SHDocVw.InternetExplorer ie = new SHDocVw.InternetExplorer(); ie.Navigate2(...). But since deploying to the server, I am getting the error.

System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {0002DF01-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 80070005.

As per above advice, I tried the following. In both cases I am receiving the raw XML. How do I get get the transformed HTML? (NOTE: I cannot use XSLCompiledTransform because the 3rd-party provided XSL uses XSLT only supported by MSXML.)

client.Headers.Add("user-agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)");

Stream data = client.OpenRead(xmlUrl);
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(data);
string s = reader.ReadToEnd();

as well as

HttpWebRequest httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(URL.ToString());
using (HttpWebResponse httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpRequest.GetResponse())
{
Stream receiveStream = httpResponse.GetResponseStream();
Encoding encode = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8");
StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(receiveStream, encode);
Console.WriteLine("\r\nResponse stream received.");
Char[] read = new Char[256];
int count = readStream.Read(read, 0, 256);
Console.WriteLine("HTML...\r\n");
while (count > 0)
{
String str = new String(read, 0, count);
Console.Write(str);
baseRequest.Append(str);
count = readStream.Read(read, 0, 256);
}
etc....

}

Cheers!

[JamieHowarth0]

Hi markpittsnh,

Try using this:

using System.Xml;
 
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(string yourDocumentUrl);
 

Or you could use the HttpWebRequest and load the XML content into a string, in which case you'd replace doc.Load() with doc.LoadXml(string xmlContent).

Hope this helps,

codegecko

[markpittsnh]

Hey codegecko,

Using this approach.....

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("http://localhost:6713/temp.xml");
...if I perform a quick watch from VS, all I see if the XML. I am trying to find a way for the inline xsl to be applied. My original approach was using the internetexplorer object. But this doesn't play nice on a server.

Regarding the use of HttpWebRequest, please have a look at the snippet I posted earlier. Is your suggestion any different than this?

Cheers!

[markpittsnh]

FWIW, I ended up calling an external JScript as I could not get MSXML 6 to convert inside C# without error.

C# code
=======

private string LaunchJScript(string xmlFilename, string xslFilename)
{

//string xslLocation = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/transform");
string htmlFilename = xmlFilename.Substring(0, xmlFilename.LastIndexOf(".") + 1) + "html";


// Start the child process.
Process process = new Process();
// Redirect the output stream of the child process.
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = false;
process.StartInfo.FileName = xslLocation + "\\" + "xsltest.js";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = xmlFilename + " " + xslFilename + " " + htmlFilename;

process.Start();
// Do not wait for the child process to exit before
// reading to the end of its redirected stream.
// p.WaitForExit();
// Read the output stream first and then wait.
// string output = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
process.WaitForExit();
if (File.Exists(htmlFilename))
{
_Logger.InfoFormat("Converted file is {0}", htmlFilename);
return htmlFilename;
}
else
{
_Logger.ErrorFormat("Converted file {0} does not exist", htmlFilename);
return string.Empty;
}
}


JScript code
============

var oArgs = WScript.Arguments;

if (oArgs.length == 0)
{
WScript.Echo ("Usage : cscript xslt.js xml xsl html");
WScript.Quit();
}
xmlFile = oArgs(0);
xslFile = oArgs(1);
htmlFile = oArgs(2);

var xsl = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.DOMDOCUMENT.6.0");
var xml = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.6.0");

xml.async = false
xml.resolveExternals = true

xsl.async = false
xsl.resolveExternals = true
xsl.setProperty("AllowDocumentFunction", true)
xsl.setProperty("AllowXsltScript", true)

xml.validateOnParse = false;
xml.async = false;
xml.load(xmlFile);

if (xml.parseError.errorCode != 0)
WScript.Echo ("XML Parse Error : " + xml.parseError.reason);

xsl.async = false;
xsl.load(xslFile);

if (xsl.parseError.errorCode != 0)
WScript.Echo ("XSL Parse Error : " + xsl.parseError.reason);

try
{
var result = xml.transformNode(xsl.documentElement)
var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var a = fso.CreateTextFile(htmlFile, true);
a.WriteLine(result);
a.Close();

}
catch(err)
{
WScript.Echo("Transformation Error : " + err.number + "*" + err.description);
}