XSLT is an excellent tool for performing some kinds of transformations and a rather poor tool for other types of transformations such as non-trivial string manipulation and iterative processes. Fortunately the Novell XSLT processor implements extension functions which allow the style sheet to call a function implemented in Java, and by extension, any other language that can be accessed through JNI.
For specific examples, see the above example using the query processor, and the following example that illustrates using Java for string manipulation (the extra long lines are wrapped and do not begin with a <).
<!-- get-dn-prefix places the part of the passed dn that -->
<!-- precedes the last occurrence of '\' in the passed dn -->
<!-- in a result tree fragment meaning that it can be -->
<!-- used to assign a variable value -->
<xsl:template name="get-dn-prefix" xmlns:jstring="http://
www.novell.com/nxsl/java/java.lang.String">
<xsl:param name="src-dn"/>
<!-- use java string stuff to make this much easier -->
<xsl:variable name="dn" select="jstring:new($src-dn)"/>
<xsl:variable name="index" select="jstring:lastIndexOf
($dn,'\')"/>
<xsl:if test="$index != -1">
<xsl:value-of select="jstring:substring($dn,0,$index)
"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>