Include user control .ascx into xslt

Question

I've created .ascx user control and I'm trying to find a way for including it into xslt rendering. How can I do this? I'm doing it for Sitecore. I thought maybe create a placeholder, but placeholders cannot be defined in renderings. I appreciate any help you can provide.

Answer 1

It's not possible to include ASCX file into xslt file because: XSLT transforms XML to HTML or to XML or to plain text but not to ASP.NET pages.

You can include xslt file into ascx but not ascx into xslt file. The best way is to change your xslt file into ascx file, and to include there with placeholders or directly . I'd suggest to avoid using XSLT.

They seem pretty easy to use, but it's really hard to refactor the code.

Answer 2

Well, it's not possible to call user controls(.ascx) directly from XSLT files. However depending upon what you want to achieve, you can call .net methods, called XSLT extension methods, from XSLT file. For instance, you may need to write code similar to below to call custom .Net GetData() method.

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:customObject="urn:yourNamespace">
    <new-data>
              <xsl:value-of select="customObject:GetData()"/>        
    </new-data>
...

Of course the type needs to be registered before it can be used. Type registration can be done into web.config or dynamically by calling AddExtensionObjectMethod of XSLTArgumentList class.

Sitecore offers XSLT extension controls too and unlike extension methods, it isn't a .net feature. XSL extension controls are XML elements in XSL renderings that correspond to .NET classes. For example, the XSL extension control corresponds to the Sitecore.Web.UI.XslControls.Text .NET class. It will be consumed something like this in XSLT file:

XSL extension controls are standalone elements in the XSL code.

To register a custom type, add following to element in web.config:

<extension mode="on" type="NamespaceName.ClassName, AssemblyName" namespace="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" singleInstance="true"/>

Reference: http://sdn.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore6/64/presentation_component_xsl_reference_sc62-64-a4.pdf