IDE for XSLT stylesheets

Question

What is the best IDE for creating and debugging complex XSLT stylesheets?

For debugging, the ability to set breakpoints and step through the source would be great.

I am interested in all options both commercial and free.

Answer 1

I use Visual Studio. It lets you set breakpoints (conditional or otherwise) and establish watches on whatever XPath expression you can come up with. It also supports XSLT right out the box and colours it differently than regular XML so developing in it is very easy.

Answer 2

I got a recommendation from someone here for Altova XMLSpy, and it was pretty nice for the few days I used it.

Answer 3

My recommendation is XMLSpy, but isn't free - http://www.altova.com/products/xmlspy/xmlspy.html

If you looking for free, you can try NetBeans - http://www.netbeans.org/

Answer 4

Editors worth checking out:

• Visual Studio
• Altova's StyleVision/XMLSpy
• Oxygen
• StylusStudio

All have their specific advantages, so just check them out. If you already have Visual Studio, I'd suggest you just getting started with this one.

Answer 5

XML Spy is the best I've used, without question. But it's very expensive.

I think XSLT debugging and single-stepping is really overrated. Granted, when I started using XSLT there were no debuggers, so I might just be identifying with my torturers here. But the same things that make writing XSLT often feel as difficult as driving a car while wearing a straitjacket (e.g., variables don't) also make using a debugger not a whole lot more useful than the insert-print-statement paradigm.

Answer 6

I've been happy with using XML Cooktop for light XSL development. It's free and has been fairly reliable for me.