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  <s1 title="&lt;xsl:comment&gt; / &lt;xsl:message&gt;">

  <ul>
  <li><link anchor="functionality">Functionality</link></li>
  <li><link anchor="implementation">Implementation</link></li>  
  </ul>
<anchor name="functionality"/>
<s2 title="Functionality">

  <p>The <code>&lt;xsl:comment&gt;</code> element is used to insert XML comments
  into the result document. The comment is inserted as follows in the XSL
  stylesheet:</p>

  <source>    &lt;element&gt;
      &lt;xsl:comment&gt;This is a comment!&lt;/xsl:comment&gt;
    &lt;/element&gt;</source>

  <p>and it will be output in the result document as follows:</p>

  <source>    &lt;element&gt;
      &lt;!-- This is a comment! --&gt;
    &lt;/element&gt;</source>

  <p>The <code>&lt;xsl:message&gt;</code> element is used to send messages to
  who/whatever is performing the transformation. The message can be displayed
  in a terminal, a dialog box, etc. The  <code>&lt;xsl:message&gt;</code> element
  is used in the same way as the <code>&lt;xsl:comment&gt;</code> element,
  however the message is <em>not</em> output in the result document.</p>

  <p>The <code>&lt;xsl:message&gt;</code> element has an attribute
  <code>"terminate"</code> which can be used to terminate the transformation at any
  given stage. This is useful when using message to give information about
  illegal values in the input document.</p>
</s2><anchor name="implementation"/>
<s2 title="Implementation">

  <p>The output handler class has a method for outputting comments in the
  output document and messages to the operator. The code compiled for a
  comment gathers all text that goes into the comment in a StringValueHandler
  object, retrieves the full text string from this handler, and then finally
  sends it to the output handler. Similarly the code compiled for a message
  will simply send the message to the output handler in use.</p>

  <p>Messages will be output to the terminal (stdout) when a transformation
  is run in a terminal. The message will be output before the beginning of the
  output document. Messages will be shown in a dialog box if a transformation
  is run in an applet.</p>

  <p><code>&lt;xsl:message&gt;</code> elements that use the <code>"terminate"</code>
  attribute to abort transformations cause an exception to be thrown. A
  RuntimeException is used for this, and the exception text is:</p>
  <p><code>Termination forced by an xsl:message instruction</code></p>
  </s2>
</s1>