JavaTM 2 Platform
Std. Ed. v1.4.1

javax.xml.transform
Class TransformerFactory

java.lang.Object
  |
  +--javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory
Direct Known Subclasses:
SAXTransformerFactory

public abstract class TransformerFactory
extends Object

A TransformerFactory instance can be used to create Transformer and Templates objects.

The system property that determines which Factory implementation to create is named "javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory". This property names a concrete subclass of the TransformerFactory abstract class. If the property is not defined, a platform default is be used.

An implementation of the TransformerFactory class is NOT guaranteed to be thread safe. It is up to the user application to make sure about the use of the TransformerFactory from more than one thread. Alternatively the application can have one instance of the TransformerFactory per thread. An application can use the same instance of the factory to obtain one or more instances of a Transformer or Templates provided the instance of the factory isn't being used in more than one thread at a time.


Constructor Summary
protected TransformerFactory()
          Default constructor is protected on purpose.
 
Method Summary
abstract  Source getAssociatedStylesheet(Source source, String media, String title, String charset)
          Get the stylesheet specification(s) associated via the xml-stylesheet processing instruction (see http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/) with the document document specified in the source parameter, and that match the given criteria.
abstract  Object getAttribute(String name)
          Allows the user to retrieve specific attributes on the underlying implementation.
abstract  ErrorListener getErrorListener()
          Get the error event handler for the TransformerFactory.
abstract  boolean getFeature(String name)
          Look up the value of a feature.
abstract  URIResolver getURIResolver()
          Get the object that is used by default during the transformation to resolve URIs used in document(), xsl:import, or xsl:include.
static TransformerFactory newInstance()
          Obtain a new instance of a TransformerFactory.
abstract  Templates newTemplates(Source source)
          Process the Source into a Templates object, which is a a compiled representation of the source.
abstract  Transformer newTransformer()
          Create a new Transformer object that performs a copy of the source to the result.
abstract  Transformer newTransformer(Source source)
          Process the Source into a Transformer object.
abstract  void setAttribute(String name, Object value)
          Allows the user to set specific attributes on the underlying implementation.
abstract  void setErrorListener(ErrorListener listener)
          Set the error event listener for the TransformerFactory, which is used for the processing of transformation instructions, and not for the transformation itself.
abstract  void setURIResolver(URIResolver resolver)
          Set an object that is used by default during the transformation to resolve URIs used in xsl:import, or xsl:include.
 
Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait
 

Constructor Detail

TransformerFactory

protected TransformerFactory()
Default constructor is protected on purpose.

Method Detail

newInstance

public static TransformerFactory newInstance()
                                      throws TransformerFactoryConfigurationError
Obtain a new instance of a TransformerFactory. This static method creates a new factory instance This method uses the following ordered lookup procedure to determine the TransformerFactory implementation class to load: Once an application has obtained a reference to a TransformerFactory it can use the factory to configure and obtain parser instances.

Returns:
new TransformerFactory instance, never null.
Throws:
TransformerFactoryConfigurationError - if the implmentation is not available or cannot be instantiated.

newTransformer

public abstract Transformer newTransformer(Source source)
                                    throws TransformerConfigurationException
Process the Source into a Transformer object. Care must be given not to use this object in multiple threads running concurrently. Different TransformerFactories can be used concurrently by different threads.

Parameters:
source - An object that holds a URI, input stream, etc.
Returns:
A Transformer object that may be used to perform a transformation in a single thread, never null.
Throws:
TransformerConfigurationException - May throw this during the parse when it is constructing the Templates object and fails.

newTransformer

public abstract Transformer newTransformer()
                                    throws TransformerConfigurationException
Create a new Transformer object that performs a copy of the source to the result.

Returns:
A Transformer object that may be used to perform a transformation in a single thread, never null.
Throws:
TransformerConfigurationException - May throw this during the parse when it is constructing the Templates object and fails.

newTemplates

public abstract Templates newTemplates(Source source)
                                throws TransformerConfigurationException
Process the Source into a Templates object, which is a a compiled representation of the source. This Templates object may then be used concurrently across multiple threads. Creating a Templates object allows the TransformerFactory to do detailed performance optimization of transformation instructions, without penalizing runtime transformation.

Parameters:
source - An object that holds a URL, input stream, etc.
Returns:
A Templates object capable of being used for transformation purposes, never null.
Throws:
TransformerConfigurationException - May throw this during the parse when it is constructing the Templates object and fails.

getAssociatedStylesheet

public abstract Source getAssociatedStylesheet(Source source,
                                               String media,
                                               String title,
                                               String charset)
                                        throws TransformerConfigurationException
Get the stylesheet specification(s) associated via the xml-stylesheet processing instruction (see http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/) with the document document specified in the source parameter, and that match the given criteria. Note that it is possible to return several stylesheets, in which case they are applied as if they were a list of imports or cascades in a single stylesheet.

Parameters:
source - The XML source document.
media - The media attribute to be matched. May be null, in which case the prefered templates will be used (i.e. alternate = no).
title - The value of the title attribute to match. May be null.
charset - The value of the charset attribute to match. May be null.
Returns:
A Source object suitable for passing to the TransformerFactory.
Throws:
TransformerConfigurationException.
TransformerConfigurationException

setURIResolver

public abstract void setURIResolver(URIResolver resolver)
Set an object that is used by default during the transformation to resolve URIs used in xsl:import, or xsl:include.

Parameters:
resolver - An object that implements the URIResolver interface, or null.

getURIResolver

public abstract URIResolver getURIResolver()
Get the object that is used by default during the transformation to resolve URIs used in document(), xsl:import, or xsl:include.

Returns:
The URIResolver that was set with setURIResolver.

getFeature

public abstract boolean getFeature(String name)
Look up the value of a feature.

The feature name is any absolute URI.

Parameters:
name - The feature name, which is an absolute URI.
Returns:
The current state of the feature (true or false).

setAttribute

public abstract void setAttribute(String name,
                                  Object value)
                           throws IllegalArgumentException
Allows the user to set specific attributes on the underlying implementation. An attribute in this context is defined to be an option that the implementation provides.

Parameters:
name - The name of the attribute.
value - The value of the attribute.
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - thrown if the underlying implementation doesn't recognize the attribute.

getAttribute

public abstract Object getAttribute(String name)
                             throws IllegalArgumentException
Allows the user to retrieve specific attributes on the underlying implementation.

Parameters:
name - The name of the attribute.
Returns:
value The value of the attribute.
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - thrown if the underlying implementation doesn't recognize the attribute.

setErrorListener

public abstract void setErrorListener(ErrorListener listener)
                               throws IllegalArgumentException
Set the error event listener for the TransformerFactory, which is used for the processing of transformation instructions, and not for the transformation itself.

Parameters:
listener - The new error listener.
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if listener is null.

getErrorListener

public abstract ErrorListener getErrorListener()
Get the error event handler for the TransformerFactory.

Returns:
The current error handler, which should never be null.

JavaTM 2 Platform
Std. Ed. v1.4.1

Submit a bug or feature
For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

Copyright 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms.