Error "cannot create ActiveX component" when using VBScript extension functions from within XSLT using msxsl:script - xslt

Question

I need to call the vbscript externally inside the xsl. I have written a sample xml and xsl when I validate the xml against xsl in have an error of cannot create ActiveX Component.
Next I have transformed the xml against the xsl using Altova but I found XML transformation failed due to following error: Function not in namespaceerror in xpath expression,Function not in namespace.
I have inculded the xml below
XML:
<LOOP_ID>
<ID LINE="1" ID00="ISA" ISA01="00" ID02="" ID03="12" ID04="" ID05="11" ID06="111111" ID07="ZZ" ID08="11111" ID09="121005" ID10="1759" ID11="^" ID12="00501" ID13="005926056" ID14="0" ID15="P" ID16=""/>
</LOOP_ID>
xsl:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:user="http://mycompany.com/mynamespace">
<msxsl:script language="VBScript" implements-prefix="user">
Function ValidDateFormat(sDateValue)
Dim Test As DateTime
If DateTime.TryParseExact(datetime, sFormat, New CultureInfo("en-US"), DateTimeStyles.None, Test) = True Then
Return "t"
Else
Return "f"
End If
End Function
Function checkDateLessthanCurrID(sValue)
Dim Test As DateTime
If DateTime.TryParseExact(sDate, "yyMMdd", New CultureInfo("en-US"), DateTimeStyles.None, Test) AndAlso Test < DateTime.Now Then
Return "t"
Else
Return "f"
End If
End Function
Function checkDateLessthanCurr(sValue)
Dim Test As DateTime
If DateTime.TryParseExact(datetime, "MM:dd:yyyy", New CultureInfo("en-US"), DateTimeStyles.None, Test) AndAlso Test < DateTime.Now Then
Return "t"
Else
Return "f"
End If
End Function
</msxsl:script>
<xsl:output method="text" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="/LOOP_ID"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="/LOOP_ID">
<xsl:if test="ID/#ID09 !=''">
<xsl:if test="user:checkDateLessthanCurrISA(string(ID/#ID09))='t'">
</xsl:if>
</xsl:if>
I need to validate the date in the attribute given in xml. But I cannot validate showing error cannot find the namespace.
I have also created a external dll for the project and registered using regasm But I cannot access the dll inside my xsl.
Can any one help me to solve the issue?

Answer 1

Your first error:
cannot create ActiveX Component
means that your code was actually executed, but failed, due to a missing ActiveX reference.
You didn't state it, but most likely you received this by using MSXML, because that is the only XSLT compiler I know of that uses ActiveX. It is also used in Internet Explorer.
Your second error:
Next I have transformed the xml against the xsl using Altova but I found XML transformation failed due to following error: Function not in namespaceerror in xpath expression,Function not in namespace.
is strange. If I run it with Altova (I use the 2013 Community version) using the /xslt commandline switch to turn off XSLT 2.0 backwards compatibility processing, it tries to parse the script block and returns the following:
Script Compile Error(s) (relative to script begin):
Line 3, Character 0: 'datetime' is a type and cannot be used as an expression.
Line 3, Character 0: 'sFormat' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.
Line 3, Character 0: Type 'CultureInfo' is not defined.
Line 3, Character 0: 'DateTimeStyles' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.
Line 12, Character 0: 'sDate' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.
Line 12, Character 0: Type 'CultureInfo' is not defined.
Line 12, Character 0: 'DateTimeStyles' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.
Line 21, Character 0: 'datetime' is a type and cannot be used as an expression.
Line 21, Character 0: Type 'CultureInfo' is not defined.
Line 21, Character 0: 'DateTimeStyles' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level.
This suggests that the code is not correct. I think the code uses VBScript and the classes you seem to be using are VB.NET.
When running the code against Microsoft's .NET version of XSLT 1.0, I receive the similar errors as above.
It turns out that Microsoft's script parser does not take your code as VBScript (which is ActiveX), but as a VB.NET script. Which is OK, as your code looks like VB.NET.
However, it is literally full of errors. I am not going to fix every error here, but here's a shortened version of your code that runs correctly on both Altova and Microsoft XSLT versions.
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:user="http://mycompany.com/mynamespace">
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<msxsl:script language="VBScript" implements-prefix="user">
Function ValidDateFormat(sDateValue As String) As String
Dim Test As DateTime
Dim sFormat As String = "MM-dd-YY"
If DateTime.TryParseExact(sDateValue, sFormat, New Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US"), Globalization.DateTimeStyles.None, Test) = True Then
Return "true"
Else
Return "false"
End If
End Function
</msxsl:script>
<xsl:output method="text" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates />
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="ID[#ID09 !='']">
<xsl:value-of select="user:ValidDateFormat(string(#ID09))"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The above returns true or false. I suggest you first try the code inside Visual Studio before you try it with XSLT, because inside XSLT it is quite hard to debug.
On mxsxl:script
In my previous post I was incorrect to assume that msxsl:script was not supported by Altova. Martin Honnen corrected me in the comments. It is supported and it looks like it uses the same code provider underneath as Microsoft uses.
Your original error was an ActiveX error. If you want to run your code with an ActiveX XSLT processor, you will need to do a few more things to get it running. First of all your code is not ActiveX VBScript. Second, you will need to make sure the appropriate ActiveX objects your code required can be instantiated (i.e., are on the system path).
In browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer and in other processors, msxsl:script is not supported. .NET scripting is not supported in any browser, use ActiveX scripting instead.
On XSLT 2.0
If you can use Altova, you are essentially using XSLT 2.0, which does not require the extensions you wrote: it can natively compare times and dates, and can get the current date and time. XSLT 2.0 processors include, but are not limited to: Altova (native), Saxon (Java and IKVM.NET), Exselt (.NET), XMLPrime (.NET).