Two phase XSLT transformation converting string to XML first - xslt

Question

I have the following XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<string>
<Table>
<Rows>
<Row Id="0">
<Column Name="INS_NAME" XPath="Ins.Name">Jane</Column>
<Column Name="INS_LASTNAME" XPath="Ins.LastName">Smith</Column>
</Row>
<Row Id="1">
<Column Name="INS_NAME" XPath="Ins.Name">Joe</Column>
<Column Name="INS_LASTNAME" XPath="Ins.LastName">Miller</Column>
</Row>
<Row Id="2">
<Column Name="INS_NAME" XPath="Ins.Name">George</Column>
<Column Name="INS_LASTNAME" XPath="Ins.LastName">Ramsey</Column>
</Row>
</Rows>
</Table>
</string>
and I would like to transform it to this XML using a single XSLT:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Customers>
<Customer><Name>Jane</Name><LastName>Smith</LastName></Customer>
<Customer><Name>Joe</Name><LastName>Miller</LastName></Customer>
<Customer><Name>George</Name><LastName>Ramsey</LastName></Customer>
</Customers>
I can do it with two different XSLT's:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:value-of select="/" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
and then:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/">
<Customers>
<xsl:for-each select="Table/Rows/Row">
<Customer>
<Name><xsl:value-of select="Column[#Name='INS_NAME']" /></Name>
<LastName><xsl:value-of select="Column[#Name='INS_LASTNAME']" /></LastName>
</Customer>
</xsl:for-each>
</Customers>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
I have been reading about multi phase transformations but I can't seem to get it. I have tried saving the first XSLT in a variable but it seems disable-output-escaping="yes" does not work when saving to a variable.
Can anybody help?
Thank you.
New information (Edit)
I am now translating the string this way:
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:variable name="stringXml">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:value-of select="translate(translate(/,'>','>'),'<','<')" />
</xsl:variable>
...
How can I do a transformation on the resulting XML stored in stringXML?
Final Solution (Edit)
<msxml:script implements-prefix="myLib" language="C#">
<msxml:assembly name="System.Web"/>
<msxml:using namespace="System.Web"/>
<![CDATA[
public System.Xml.XPath.XPathNodeIterator convertText(string text)
{
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.PreserveWhitespace = true;
doc.LoadXml(text);
return doc.CreateNavigator().Select("/");
}
]]>
</msxml:script>

Answer 1

it seems disable-output-escaping="yes" does not work when saving to a
variable.
Your observation is correct.
DOE only affects the serialization of the (final) result of the transformation and isn't applied on intermediary trees.
Here is what the W3C XSLT 1.0 specification explicitly says:
"An XSLT processor will only be able to disable output escaping if it
controls how the result tree is output. This may not always be the
case. For example, the result tree may be used as the source tree for
another XSLT transformation instead of being output."
The same negative answer holds for trying to use a variable, whose value is a string, containing a textual representation of an XML document.

Answer 2

I had a similar situation where I needed to parse an escaped XML inside my actual XML. I will post up my solution to also help someone else. Please also note that I am also using Saxon-PE parser.
In my situation I have the original XML that contains an escaped XML in a child node. I needed to get the inner XML inside the RootNode of the escaped XML.
Source XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<MyTestXml>
<SomeXmlStuff>
<Text1>Hello</Text1>
<Text2>World</Text2>
</SomeXmlStuff>
<SomeEscapedXml><RootNode><FirstNode>Hello</FirstNode><SecondNode>World</SecondNode><ThirdNode>Again</ThirdNode></RootNode></SomeEscapedXml>
</MyTestXml>
When you unescaped the XML, it looks like this:
<RootNode>
<FirstNode>Hello</FirstNode>
<SecondNode>World</SecondNode>
<ThirdNode>Again</ThirdNode>
</RootNode>
With the following XSLT transformation is applied on the source XML:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="3.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:saxon="http://saxon.sf.net/"
exclude-result-prefixes="xsl saxon">
<xsl:template match="/">
<MyOutput>
<xsl:call-template name="GetRootNodeInnerXml">
<xsl:with-param name="escapedXml" select="MyTestXml/SomeEscapedXml" />
</xsl:call-template>
</MyOutput>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="GetRootNodeInnerXml">
<xsl:param name="escapedXml" required="yes" />
<xsl:copy-of select="saxon:parse($escapedXml)/RootNode/node()"/>
<!-- You can also use this line below if you're not using saxon parser. Just make sure your parser supports XSL 3.0 -->
<!--
<xsl:copy-of select="fn:parse-xml($escapedXml)/RootNode/node()" xmlns:fn="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions"/>
-->
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This gives you the following output:
<?xml version='1.0' ?>
<MyOutput>
<FirstNode>Hello</FirstNode>
<SecondNode>World</SecondNode>
<ThirdNode>Again</ThirdNode>
</MyOutput>