How to Use DataSource Property in DataFormWebPart - sharepoint-2007

Question

I'm writing a custom web part that extends DataFormWebPart.
public class MyCustomWebPart : DataFormWebPart{
// other methods
public override void DataBind()
{
XmlDataSource source =
new XmlDataSource() { Data = #"
<Person>
<name cap='true'>Bryan</name>
<occupation>student</occupation>
</Person>
"
};
DataSources.Add(source);
base.DataBind();
}
}
The only noticeable thing I do is overriding the DataBind() method, where I use xml as the data source.
After I deploy the web part, I set the following XSL to it:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xmp>
<xsl:copy-of select="*"/>
</xmp>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This xsl will surround the input xml with a tag . So I expected the web part to display the original xml data as I wrote in C# code behind. But what shows up in the web part is this:
<Person>
<name cap="true" />
<occupation />
</Person>
All the values within the inner-most tags disappear.
What's going on? Can anybody help me?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I know this is several months since your question but I also experienced this same issue and have found the resolution.
On this MSDN forum post - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/0a0527b6-3a05-4791-8cc5-9a6de07d23f3
they mentioned that there is a bug in the xsmldatasource xpath navigation binding, and the resolution is to override the GetXPathNavigator method.
moving code from the databind to this method immediately resolved the lookup issue.