XSLT Plugins

Post date: Mar 27, 2012 1:47:33 PM

Background

QBO offers standard XSLT plugins, which let you access C# functionality from XSLT documents. At the time if this blog post, these include

• • qbo.Application.Utilities

    • XsltData.cs

    • XsltFormatting.cs

  • qbo.Security.Utilities

    • XstlSecurity.cs

To access these plugins, you must:

• • Ensure your QBO 3 instance includes Config/XsltExtension.config,

  • Alias the appropriate namespace(s) in your XSLT document, 

  • Reference these function with their namespace alias

For example:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"

    xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"

xmlns:data="urn:qbo3-data"

xmlns:format="urn:qbo3-formatting"

xmlns:security="urn:qbo3-security"

exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl format data security"

>

...

<xsl:if test="security:isInRole('SecurityAdmin')">

<xsl:for-each select="data:invoke('Collection', 'Search', 'SourceObject=Person'))//CollectionItem"">

<li class="menu" onclick="..."> 

<xsl:text>Join Team </xsl:text>

<xsl:value-of select="format:pascalFromLabel(Collection)"/>

</li>

</xsl:for-each>

</xsl:if>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Formatting (urn:qbo3-formatting)

This class includes methods to assist with simple formatting, including some neat date stuff. For a full list, please review the class itself. Some teaser examples:

• • pascalFromLabel(string): turns ImportFileTemplate into Import File Template

  • lastPart(input, delimiter): turns /Templates/Folder/File.ext into File.ext

  • toDate(string): accepts today | yesterday | tomorrow | first | last (e.g. toDate('first') returns the first of the current month)

  • dateAdd('today', 'd', 3): returns three days from today

Data (urn:qbo3-data)

This is the most powerful XSLT extension object, as it allows you to invoke any DbMethod or DbStatement in any class. It has just one method: 

invoke(className, method, queryString)

where:

• • className is the name of the class (table) you wish to invoke (e.g. 'Valuation', 'Collection', 'Message', etc.)

  • method is the name of the method you wish to invoke

  • queryString is a query string of parameters you wish to pass to the method

This is roughly equivalent to QBO 2.0's ExecuteProcedure method, with these notable enhancements:

• • The queryString parameter makes passing parameters much easier than constructing an XmlNode as an xsl:variable,

  • This can call actual class methods, not just data-related statements, and

  • It leverages the full QBO security model

Security (urn:qbo3-security)

This method provide three basic methods:

• • bool isInRole(role): checks to see if the current user is a member of role

  • bool hasPermission(function): checks to see if the current user has permission to 'function'

  • string userName(): user name of the current user

  • long userID(): user ID (PersonID) of the current user

  • XmlNode user(): returns the current user's Person record