Right now if you go into your C# project and do a transform like:
string xslt, xml, html; //Suppose these have meaningful values
XslCompiledTransform tranform = new XslCompiledTransform(true);
tranform.Load(new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(xslt)));
tranform.Transform(
new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(xml)),
new XmlTextWriter(new StringWriter(html)));
You cannot debug it. The debugger wants a file it can look at, and there isn't any, since you are getting the xslt from a string. It's a clearcut debugger limitation, but how can we workaround it?
Well, after much research I think there is no way, unless ... you can change the code. In that case you can write:
string xslt, xml, html; //Suppose these have meaningful values
XslCompiledTransform tranform = new XslCompiledTransform(true);
string tempFileName = Path.GetTempFileName();
File.WriteAllText(tempFileName, xslt);
tranform.Load(tempFileName);
tranform.Transform(
new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(xml)),
new XmlTextWriter(new StringWriter(html)));
Voila, now VS will happily let you debug the xslt, because it has a file to look at - the temporary one. It sucks to create the file and it is certainly impractical to leave it on on a production system. You can use it while debugging and later on remove it, or you can use the code in a #if debug statement, that will revert back to the correct implementation on release builds.
You you have found a better way to debug xslt from a string, let me know, and until then happy xslt-ing.
