[xslt] extending xslt to provide something like a macro

[Phil Frost <indigo bitglue com>]

I've been playing with xslt for the past few days as a possible method by
which I can maintain a maximal separation between the presentation and the
logic of a web application. My current setup is using apache's mod_python to
apply a standard stylesheet to any requested XML file.

I'm not sure of the best way to solve my problem. What I want is some sort
of element that can be put in the source XML to signal my application to put
some standard component in it's place. This component would query a database
and output the data.

What I've been trying is to write an extension element (by using
registerExtModuleElement) to do this. The problem is that while I've been
able to output any data to the output document, I can't find a way in the
documentation to apply stylesheets to this result. What I'd like to happen
is have my extensions return the data in XML that is then transformed by the
stylesheet to XHTML.

Again, I'm not sure if an extension element is the right solution for my
problem. There are just so many standards floating about I can't find the
right one :-P So, what is the solution for my problem, and how do I make it
work?

Thanks for your help,
Phil Frost