Question

I’ve been using the Xalan XSLT processor in Eclipse STS 3.7, but I recently switched to Saxon 9.2 (Home Edition). In Eclipse Preferences, I switched the processor and set the JAR file to saxon9he.jar, but without a debugger. When I execute a transformation from Eclipse, I keep getting this exception. It appears to be complaining about a config file edition.properties, but I’ve checked the Saxon package I downloaded with the jar binaries and there is no such file. I also downloaded the Saxon Eclipse plugin just to see if that config file is part of the plugin, but it ain’t.

Unfortunately, we have a 3rd party product that uses Saxon internally, so I’m forced to get this to work in Eclipse to make sure our integration with the product produces expected results, otherwise, I would have stuck with Xalan.

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at net.sf.saxon.Configuration.<clinit>(Configuration.java:231)
    at net.sf.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl.<init>(TransformerFactoryImpl.java:36)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:355)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:308)
    at javax.xml.transform.FactoryFinder.newInstance(FactoryFinder.java:147)
    at javax.xml.transform.FactoryFinder.find(FactoryFinder.java:187)
    at javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory.newInstance(TransformerFactory.java:102)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.createTransformerFactory(JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.java:92)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.setAttributes(JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.java:79)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.PipelineDefinition.configure(PipelineDefinition.java:143)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.Main.main(Main.java:72)
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at net.sf.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl.<init>(TransformerFactoryImpl.java:36)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory.newInstance(TransformerFactory.java:102)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.createTransformerFactory(JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.java:92)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.setAttributes(JAXPSAXProcessorInvoker.java:79)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.PipelineDefinition.configure(PipelineDefinition.java:143)
    at org.eclipse.wst.xsl.jaxp.debug.invoker.internal.Main.main(Main.java:72)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to load configuration defined in edition.properties
    at net.sf.saxon.Configuration.<clinit>(Configuration.java:277)
    ... 14 more
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at net.sf.saxon.Configuration.<clinit>(Configuration.java:231)
    ... 14 more

Answer 1

I managed to get this working after recreating the Saxon XSLT parser configuration under Preferences, and restarting Eclipse. I believe Eclipse was holding on to some old configuration that may have tripped up the Saxon initialization. Works now, go figure..