# The saxon:next-in-chain attribute

The `saxon:next-in-chain` attribute (XSLT-only) is used to direct the output to another stylesheet. The value is the URL of a stylesheet that should be used to process the output stream. In this case the output stream must always be pure XML, and attributes that control the format of the output (e.g. method, cdata-section-elements, etc) will have no effect. The output of the second stylesheet will be directed to the destination that would have been used for the first stylesheet if no `saxon:next-in-chain` attribute were not present.

Supplying a zero-length string is equivalent to omitting the attribute, except that it can be used to override a previous setting.

An alternative way of chaining transformations is to use the saxon:compile-stylesheet() and saxon:transform() extension functions.

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