This is an interesting sort of problem. Will your "metadata" output be 
further machine processed to prove the transformation integrity, or just 
human inspected?

Years ago when I was asked to verify my transform was correct, I wrote 
out a schematron result-document with rules stating what the output 
should look like. Then I ran the schematron rules against the XSLT 
output. In your case, you could tell schematron to report not only what 
was expected, but why.

I probably used different modes, as Martin originally suggested. As 
Wendell points out, this is a bit removed from the actual logic of the 
templates.

Regards,
--Paul

On 6/28/24 17:14, Wendell Piez wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Roger,
>
> Yes, what Martin said.
>
> If you don't like separate modes because you want your tracing logic 
> coupled closely to your transformation logic, the classic 'XSLT 
> approach' would be to build a unified tree in one pass, then 
> post-process that tree twice, once for main outputs (filtering out the 
> logs) and a separate time for the trace log (filtering everything else).
>
> Indeed you might find with the second pass to extract the trace log, 
> you can also enhance it usefully.
>
> More generally, to make XSLT work you need to adopt a 'pipelining' 
> mentality, by which I mean an idea of separate discrete steps 
> achieving discrete aims, working in combination - for example in this 
> case, generating the logged information is actually separate from 
> writing it to a file.
>
> Good luck, Wendell
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 5:44b/PM Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx 
> <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>     On 28/06/2024 23:39, Roger L Costello costello@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>     Is there anyway that I can achieve what I desire -- output to one
>>     document the result of mapping the old form to the new form and output
>>     to another document metadata that describes the mapping steps that were
>>     taken? Or is this outside the realm of XSLT's capabilities?
>
>
>     I would consider processing the nodes/elements twice in different
>     modes where one mode creates the primary result and the other one
>     the xsl:result-document.
>
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