Smart trick - exslt:node-set() in Internet Explorer

I found this gem in David Carlisle's blog. Smart Javascript trick allows to mask msxsl:node-set() extension function as exsl:node-set() and so you can easily write crossbrowser XSLT stylesheets using exsl:node-set() functionality. Opera 9, Internet Explorer 6-7 and Firefox 3 are covered, but sadly Firefox 2 is out of the game. Julian Reschke came with a nice trick using Javascript expressiveness:

<xsl:stylesheet
  version="1.0" 
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:exslt="http://exslt.org/common"
  xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
  exclude-result-prefixes="exslt msxsl">
  

<msxsl:script language="JScript" implements-prefix="exslt">
 this['node-set'] =  function (x) {
  return x;
  }
</msxsl:script>
...

Very smart.

That reminds me old days of mine when I came with a similar trick for EXSLT extension functions implemented in C# (for EXSLT.NET project). Except that C# isn't so dynamic as Javascript so I had to escape to renaming method names in MSIL bytecode. That trick still drives EXSLT.NET (now module of the Mvp.Xml library).

 By the way just to remind you - .NET (XslCompiledTransform) supports exsl:node-set() function natively.