Saxon 9.8 product comparison (Feature Matrix)

XSLT 3.0 Basic Processor

Provides all mandatory features from the XSLT 3.0 specification (including try/catch, iterate, accumulators, maps, named modes, content value templates, and extended patterns).

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Schema Awareness

Provides a schema-aware XSLT 3.0 processor.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Serialization

Provides the serialization feature.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Compatibility

Provides XSLT 1.0 compatibility mode.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Streaming

Includes additional features of the XSLT 3.0 specification, that enable streaming (processing of documents that are too large to fit in memory).

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Dynamic Evaluation

Provides use of the XSLT 3.0 instruction xsl:evaluate which allows dynamic evaluation of XPath expressions.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 XPath 3.1 Feature

Provides full use of XPath 3.1 features, including XPath 3.1 functions, and maps and arrays.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XSLT 3.0 Higher-Order Functions

Provides higher-order functions: specifically, the ability to use functions as values, including dynamic function calls, inline functions, partial function application, and the XPath 3.1 higher-order functions.

Further info: XSLT 3.0 conformance

XSLT 3.0 Recommendation (08 June 2017)

XPath 3.1 Basic

Provides all XPath 3.1 features which do not require schema-awareness or higher-order functions. This includes an implementation of maps and arrays, and support for JSON.

Further info: XPath 3.1 conformance

XPath 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XPath 3.1 Schema Aware

Provides schema-awareness: specifically, any use of source documents with type annotations, and any use of XPath expressions that contain the names of schema components such as element declarations and types, other than the built-in types.

Further info: XPath 3.1 conformance

XPath 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XPath 3.1 Higher-Order Functions

Provides higher-order functions: specifically, the ability to use functions as values, including dynamic function calls, inline functions, partial function application, and specific higher-order functions.

Further info: XPath 3.1 conformance

XPath 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Minimal Conformance

Provides Minimal Conformance (including try/catch and "group-by") as defined in section 5 of the XQuery 3.1 specification.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Schema Aware

Provides the Schema Aware feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Typed Data

Provides the Typed Data feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Static Typing

Saxon does not implement the Static Typing feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Modules

Provides the Module feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Serialization

Provides the Serialization feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery 3.1 Higher-Order Functions

Provides the Higher-Order Function feature.

Further info: XQuery 3.1 conformance

XQuery 3.1 Recommendation (21 March 2017)

XQuery Update 1.0

Saxon provides all the features defined in the XQuery Update 1.0 specification. The implementation allows XQuery Update 1.0 syntax to be mixed with XQuery 3.1 syntax.

Further info: XQuery Update 1.0 conformance

XQuery Update 1.0 Recommendation (17 March 2011)

XML Schema 1.0 Validation

Saxon includes a complete implementation of XML Schema 1.0. This provides the ability to process XSD 1.0 schema documents and use them to validate instance documents. Note that Saxon does not expose the full PSVI, as required by the conformance rules in the XSD 1.0 Recommendation. Also includes Saxon extension functions to provide access to a compiled schema.

Further info: XML Schema 1.0 conformance

XML Schema 1.0 Recommendation (28 October 2004)

XML Schema 1.1 Validation

Saxon includes a complete implementation of XML Schema 1.1. This provides the ability to process schema documents that use the new features of XSD 1.1, and use them to validate instance documents. More specifically, in the language of section 2.4 of the specification, it is a General-Purpose Web-Aware Validator. Also includes Saxon extension functions to provide access to a compiled schema.

Further info: XML Schema 1.1 conformance

XML Schema 1.1 Recommendation (05 April 2012)

Binary XML

Saxon's PTree format is a serialized binary representation of Saxon's internal tree format. It occupies around the same amount of disk space as the original XML, but is faster to serialize and faster to reparse.

Further info: The PTree file format

Byte code generation

Allows hot-spot code generation for XSLT, XQuery, XPath, and XML Schema. Available for both Java and .NET platforms, typically giving a 25% performance boost.

Further info: Compiling a Stylesheet

Document projection

This feature performs static analysis of a query and uses this to filter a document during loading, so that the only parts held in memory are those parts needed to answer the query. For simple queries on large documents this can give substantial memory savings.

Further info: Document projection

Export stylesheet packages

XSLT 3.0 packaging allows stylesheet modules to be independently compiled and distributed, and provides much more "software engineering" control over public and private interfaces, and the like. The ability to save packages in compiled form ("stylesheet export file", SEF) gives much faster loading of frequently used stylesheets, and also enables in-browser execution using Saxon-JS.

Further info: Compiling a Stylesheet

Import stylesheet packages

Allows the importing of stylesheet packages in compiled form. Possible with all editions except Saxon-HE, provided the package only uses features available in that edition.

Further info: Compiling a Stylesheet

Multi-threading (XPath)

Takes advantage of multi-core CPUs by providing automatic parallel execution of the collection() function.

Multi-threading (XSLT)

Takes advantage of multi-core CPUs by providing automatic parallel execution of the xsl:result-document instruction; plus an extension attribute saxon:threads to allow multi-threaded execution of xsl:for-each instructions under the control of the stylesheet author.

Optimizer (Basic)

The Basic optimizer provided with all Saxon editions provides a wide range of static and dynamic optimizations including full pipelining of list operations, lazy evaluation of variables, elimination of redundant sorting operations, etc.

Optimizer (Advanced)

The Advanced optimizer provides the wide range of static and dynamic optimizations featured in the Basic optimizer - including full pipelining of list operations, lazy evaluation of variables, elimination of redundant sorting operations, etc. - and additionally provides join optimization, inlining of variables and functions, just-in-time compilation of template rules, and optimized searching of large sets of template rules, where feasible.

Reading W3C schemas and DTDs

The W3C web server now routinely rejects requests for commonly-referenced files such as the DTD for XHTML, causing parsing failures. In response to this, Saxon now includes copies of these documents within the issued JAR file, and recognizes requests for these documents, satisfying the request using the local copy.

Streaming (XPath)

Provides saxon:stream(), an extension function to allow large documents to be processed without holding the whole document in memory.

Further info: Streaming of Large Documents

Streaming (XSLT)

Allows large documents to be processed without holding the whole document in memory. Provides the streaming features of the XSLT 3.0 specification.

Further info: Streaming of Large Documents

EXSLT extension functions

A selection of EXSLT extension functions are provided (in the modules Common, Dates and Times, Math, Random, and Sets), as listed in the documentation.

Further info: EXSLT extensions

EXPath extension functions

A selection of EXPath extension functions are provided (in the modules Archive, Binary, and File), as listed in the documentation.

Further info: EXPath extensions

Extensibility using custom classes

Ability to write extension functions (for use in XSLT, XQuery, or XPath) by implementing a Saxon-defined interface and registering the implementation with the Saxon Configuration.

Further info: Extensibility

Extensibility using reflexion (Java and .NET)

Ability to access existing Java or .NET methods dynamically and invoke them as extension functions by means of dynamic loading and reflexion.

Further info: Extensibility

Extensibility using reflexion (JavaScript)

Ability to access existing JavaScript objects and functions dynamically.

Event handling extensions

Ability to write template rules which respond to user interaction events in the browser.

Saxon extension functions (Basic)

Extension functions, as listed in the documentation, in the Saxon namespace. The Basic level excludes extension functions that depend on streaming or schema-awareness.

Further info: Saxon extension functions

Saxon extension functions (Advanced)

Extension functions, as listed in the documentation, in the Saxon namespace. The Advanced level includes those that depend on streaming or schema-awareness: saxon:schema(), saxon:stream(), and saxon:validate().

Further info: Saxon extension functions

SQL extension

XSLT extension instructions providing access to SQL databases. Available on the Java platform only (not .NET).

Further info: Saxon SQL extension

XSLT element extensibility

Ability to implement XSLT extension instructions by implementing a Saxon-defined interface and registering the implementation with the Saxon Configuration.

Further info: Writing XSLT extension instructions

Localization (Basic)

Run-time localization support for formatting of dates and numbers, and sorting and comparison of strings, building on the capabilities of the Java Virtual Machine.

Further info: Unicode collation, Localizing numbers and dates

Localization (Advanced)

Run-time localization support for formatting of dates and numbers, and sorting and comparison of strings, building on the capabilities of the ICU-J library. The Advanced level also includes APIs which allow additional languages to be supported.

Further info: Unicode collation, Localizing numbers and dates

JAXP API

Implementations of the standard JAXP interfaces for XSLT transformation, XPath evaluation, and XML Schema validation. Applies to the Java platform only.

Further info: JAXP API conformance

S9API API

Saxon's native interface for processing XSLT, XQuery, XPath, and XML Schema. Available in slightly different forms on the Java and .NET platforms.

Support for DOM

Ability to use a DOM (Document Object Model) for the input and output of transformations and queries. On the .NET platform this includes the System.XML DOM classes.

Further info: Object models

Optimized support for DOM

Indexing of a supplied DOM tree to provide fast navigation (the Domino Model).

Further info: Domino Tree Model

Support for JDOM, JDOM2, AXIOM, DOM4J, and XOM

Ability to use a JDOM, JDOM2, AXIOM, DOM4J, and XOM for the input or output of transformations and queries. Applies to the Java platform only. Note that the code for these interfaces is open source and can be compiled to work with Saxon-HE, but it does not come packaged with the Saxon-HE download.

Further info: Object models

XQJ API

Implementations of the standard XQJ interfaces for XQuery processing. Applies to the Java platform only. Note that the XQJ interfaces have been removed from the standard download of Saxon-HE because the Oracle specification license is not open source, but they are available on request.

Further info: XQJ API conformance