Question

Let’s say I have two strings:

• one is XML data
• and the other is XSL data.

The xml and xsl data are stored in database columns, if you must know.

How can I transform the XML in C# w/o saving the xml and xsl as files first? I would like the output to be a string, too (HTML from the transformation).

It seems C# prefers to transform via files. I couldn’t find a string-input overload for Load() in XslCompiledTransform. So, that’s why I’m asking.

Answer 1

Here’s what I went with. It’s a combination of your answers. I voted up the answers that inspired this:

string output = String.Empty;
using (StringReader srt = new StringReader(xslInput)) // xslInput is a string that contains xsl
using (StringReader sri = new StringReader(xmlInput)) // xmlInput is a string that contains xml
{
    using (XmlReader xrt = XmlReader.Create(srt))
    using (XmlReader xri = XmlReader.Create(sri))
    {
        XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform();
        xslt.Load(xrt);
        using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
        using (XmlWriter xwo = XmlWriter.Create(sw, xslt.OutputSettings)) // use OutputSettings of xsl, so it can be output as HTML
        {
            xslt.Transform(xri, xwo);
            output = sw.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Note: this statement is required in the xsl, in order to output as HTML:

<xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />