Installing the software

An index of all currently available open-source versions of Saxon is on the download page at SourceForge.

For the commercial versions of Saxon, please follow the download links from www.saxonica.com. Historic versions of the software are not listed on the web site, but are available to existing users on request.

Installation of Saxon on the Java platform simply involves unzipping the supplied download file into a suitable directory. The procedure is the same for all editions (HE, PE, and EE). The JAR files are differently named in each edition.

One of the files that will be created in this directory is the principal JAR file. This is saxon9he.jar, saxon9pe.jar, or saxon9ee.jar depending on which Saxon edition you are using.

There are some additional JAR files to support optional features such as the SQL interface and the ICU localization library. When running Saxon, the principal JAR file should be on the class path. The class path is normally represented by an environment variable named CLASSPATH: see your Java documentation for details. Note that the JAR file itself (not the directory that contains it) should be named on the class path.

Some environments (for example Java IDEs such as Eclipse, and servlet containers such as tomcat) build the classpath themselves: they might ask you to register the location of JAR files via a graphical user interface or a text configuration file, or they might ask you to put the JAR files in a well known place (for example WEB-INF/lib in the case of tomcat). Follow the instructions for the environment you are using.