Additional Comments From mike (AT) saxonica (DOT) com 2005-05-26 13:30
The difference between xsl:result-document and an external function call is that
an external function call returns a result that the stylesheet can process,
while xsl:result-document returns no result (other than possibly causing the
transformation to fail if the result cannot be written).
I think you are trying to extend XSLT beyond its current scope. The job of XSLT
is to transform input trees into result trees. That's one component in an
end-to-end XML application. jobs, such as calling web services or
accessing XML databases, are better done by other components, and the job of
tying the whole application together belongs with things such as pipeline
processing languages.
Michael Kay (personal response)