Using XSLT With Go

I am working on a project that requires pulling and processing different XML feeds from the web and storing the data into MongoDB as JSON. Since new feeds come up everyday, changing the Go program to process and publish new feeds is out of the question. A second constraint is that processing has to work in Iron.io or any other linux cloud based environment.

What I needed was a Go program that could take an XML document and XSLT stylesheet at runtime, transform the XML into JSON and then store the JSON to MongoDB. I have some specific field names and other requirements for the JSON document that I need to make sure exist. XSLT makes this real easy to support.

At first I looked at the different C libraries that exist. I figured I could integrate a library using CGO but after a few hours I realized this was not going to work. The libraries I found were huge and complex. Then by chance I found a reference about a program called xsltproc. The program exists both for the Mac and Linux operating systems. In fact, it comes pre-installed on the Mac and an apt-get will get you a copy of the program on your linux operating system.

I have built a sample program that shows how to use xsltproc in your Go programs. Before we download the sample code we need to make sure you have xsltproc installed.

If you are running on a Mac, xsltproc should already exist under /usr/bin