How to register Saxon/XSLT extension functions such that they accessible in BaseX/XQuery (JAXP APIs)

Question

I have a few Saxon/XSLT extension functions that I created through the simple interface that I register like this:

Processor proc = new Processor(false);
proc.registerExtensionFunction(myExtensionFunctionInstance);

Now I want to use that with BaseX, but I see that BaseX instantiates its own Processor instance through JAXP APIs:

// Somewhere inside basex's XSLT transformer instantiation (see link above).
final TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();

So it seems I need to find a way to change the factory that BaseX uses such that I can register my functions.

If I get it right I need to create my own factory implementation. Adapted from Saxon's net.sf.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl:

package my.package;
public class MyOwnTrasnformerFactory extends SaxonTransformerFactory {
    public TransformerFactoryImpl() {
        super();
        ExtensionFunction myFunction = new MyExtFunction(...);
        this.processor.registerExtensionFunction(myFunction);
    }

    public TransformerFactoryImpl(Configuration config) {
        super(config);
        ExtensionFunction myFunction = new MyExtFunction(...);
        this.processor.registerExtensionFunction(myFunction);
    }
}

And then I could do:

System.setProperty(
  "javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory",
  "my.package.MyOwnTrasnformerFactory");

• Doe this seem like a correct approach?
• Is there's an alternative way to create a single processor instance for the lifetime of my program without creating my custom factory? I'm using Clojure and creating Java classes (genclass) is a bit less convenient and less dynamic.

Answer 1

I ended up implementing the solution described on my question... here's a full gist:

https://gist.github.com/EmmanuelOga/018ece8b4776636ce1ab3f73e215ce75

The relevant parts:

(ns rainbowfish.xslt-factory
  (:import [net.sf.saxon Configuration]
           [net.sf.saxon.lib Feature])
  (:gen-class
   :name rainbowfish.XsltFactory
   :extends net.sf.saxon.jaxp.SaxonTransformerFactory
   :post-init configure))

(defn -configure
  "Generated Java class will call this method right after
  construction. Here we get a chance to grab Saxon's processor for
  configuration purposes (for example, adding extension functions)."
  [this & args]
  (let [processor (.getProcessor this)]
    ;; Here we can do whatever we want to the processor,
    ;; For instance, register some extension functions.
    (doto processor
      (.registerExtensionFunction some-function))))

That defines the Java class rainbowfish.XsltFactory using clojure. Since it uses gen-class, it needs to be compiled by calling compile('rainbowfish.xslt-factory) or by asking lein to compile it, etc.

Now that we have a class that configures the XSLT processor, we need to inform BaseX that it should use it. BaseX reads the JAXP configuration for this. The configuration can be set like this:

(System/setProperty
     "javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory",
     "rainbowfish.XsltFactory")

... this should be called before creating an instance of the BaseX server. See the gist for more details!