Error in transformNode in IE8

following code is working in chrome but not in IE8 . can you please help on it.

function loadXMLDoc(filename)
{
if (window.ActiveXObject)
  {
  xhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
  }
else 
  {
  xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
xhttp.open("GET", filename, false);
try {xhttp.responseType = "msxml-document";} catch(err) {} // Helping IE11
xhttp.send();
//alert("response:::"+xhttp.responseText);
return xhttp.responseXML;
}



function displayResult()
{
    var xmlurl=window.location.ref="<%=request.getContextPath()%>/GenerateXMLServlet";
    var xslurl=window.location.ref="<%=request.getContextPath()%>/GenerateXSLServlet";

        xml = loadXMLDoc(xmlurl);
        xsl = loadXMLDoc(xslurl);
        // code for IE
        if (window.ActiveXObject || xhttp.responseType == "msxml-document") {

            ex = xml.transformNode(xsl); // getting error on this line
            document.getElementById("example").innerHTML = ex;
        }
        // code for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc.
        else if (document.implementation
                && document.implementation.createDocument) {
            xsltProcessor = new XSLTProcessor();
            xsltProcessor.importStylesheet(xsl);
            resultDocument = xsltProcessor.transformToFragment(xml, document);
            document.getElementById("example").appendChild(resultDocument);
        }
    }

we are getting the following javascript error : "The stylesheet does not contain a document element. The stylesheet may be empty, or it may not be a well-formed XML document."