XSL transformation with Ant: sorting a list

[Al Le]

Hello,  

I'm facing a weird problem (IMHO) which, in short, is:

a node list passed as a parameter to a template can't be sorted.

The problem occurs only if I do the transformation from within Ant (I use Ant 
1.8.4). It does not occur if I perform it via a Java program or in XmlSpy or 
through http://xsltransform.net.

Here's an example.

The input file (a.xml) is:

<root>
    <a>BBB</a>
    <a>AAA</a>
</root>

The transformation (trans.xml) is:

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

  <xsl:output method="xml" />

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <Root>
      <xsl:call-template name="processThis">
        <xsl:with-param name="nodeList" select="/*/a"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </Root>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="processThis">
    <xsl:param name="nodeList" />

      <xsl:for-each select="$nodeList">
        <xsl:sort /><!-- ***** This causes the problem -->
        <xsl:variable name="thisVal" select="." />
        <result value="{$thisVal}" />
      </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

The Ant script is:

<project default="trans">
        
    <target name="trans">
        <delete file="out.xml"/>
        <xslt style="trans.xsl" in="a.xml" out="out.xml"/>
    </target>
        
</project>


The expected output is:

<Root>
    <result value="AAA" />
    <result value="BBB" />
</Root>

But if I run the ant script, just an empty 'Root' element is generated, without 
child nodes.

If I comment out the line marked with '*****', the generated Root element does 
contain child elements, but unsorted (as one would expect in this case).

If I process the elements directly (and not in a template passing the list to 
process as a parameter), then I can use 'sort', and everything works as 
expected. Here is the 'direct' transformation:

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

    <xsl:output method="xml" />

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <Root>
            <xsl:for-each select="/*/a">
                <xsl:sort />
                <xsl:variable name="thisVal" select="." />
                <result value="{$thisVal}" />
            </xsl:for-each>
        </Root>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

So my question is: why isn't a list passed as a parameter to a template 
processed with a 'sort' option -- in Ant?

Thank you!
AL

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