Validation of "virtual" XHTML documents?

	It would be useful if there was some way to validate a "virtual"
XHTML document generated by applying an XSLT stylesheet to an XML document.
There's an obvious workaround involving the use of an external stylesheet
processor to create an actual XHTML document, which could then be validated
in the usual way. But Microsoft's Internet Explorer v. 5.5+ contains a
built-in XML parser, and it seems likely that Netscape (Mozilla? Opera?
Amaya?) will eventually follow suit. I'd like to exploit this capability to
publish XML documents which reference their associated XSLT stylesheets
(using <?xml:stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="stylesheet.xsl"?> or similar)
so that compliant browsers can view them more-or-less transparently; but
the problem is that the XHTML target document doesn't really exist anywhere
(though its content must of course be transmitted to the browser), thus
frustrating attempts at automated validation.

	Is there any possible way for a validator to follow the stylesheet
link and apply it to the XML source like a stylesheet processor (or
Internet Explorer) does?

	My apologies if there *is* a way to do this and I've simply failed
to think of it.	

Dave Schulman (capsalad@gate.net)

Received on Tuesday, 11 February 2003 01:47:59 UTC