THE WORLD'S LARGEST WEB DEVELOPER SITE

XML Tutorial

XML HOME XML Introduction XML How to use XML Tree XML Syntax XML Elements XML Attributes XML Namespaces XML Display XML HttpRequest XML Parser XML DOM XML XPath XML XSLT XML XQuery XML XLink XML Validator XML DTD XML Schema XML Server XML Examples XML Quiz XML Certificate

XML AJAX

AJAX Introduction AJAX XMLHttp AJAX Request AJAX Response AJAX XML File AJAX PHP AJAX ASP AJAX Database AJAX Applications AJAX Examples

XML DOM

DOM Introduction DOM Nodes DOM Accessing DOM Node Info DOM Node List DOM Traversing DOM Navigating DOM Get Values DOM Change Nodes DOM Remove Nodes DOM Replace Nodes DOM Create Nodes DOM Add Nodes DOM Clone Nodes DOM Examples

XPath Tutorial

XPath Introduction XPath Nodes XPath Syntax XPath Axes XPath Operators XPath Examples

XSLT Tutorial

XSLT Introduction XSL Languages XSLT Transform XSLT <template> XSLT <value-of> XSLT <for-each> XSLT <sort> XSLT <if> XSLT <choose> XSLT Apply XSLT on the Client XSLT on the Server XSLT Edit XML XSLT Examples

XQuery Tutorial

XQuery Introduction XQuery Example XQuery FLWOR XQuery HTML XQuery Terms XQuery Syntax XQuery Add XQuery Select XQuery Functions

XML DTD

DTD Introduction DTD Building Blocks DTD Elements DTD Attributes DTD Elements vs Attr DTD Entities DTD Examples

XSD Schema

XSD Introduction XSD How To XSD <schema> XSD Elements XSD Attributes XSD Restrictions

XSD Complex

XSD Elements XSD Empty XSD Elements Only XSD Text Only XSD Mixed XSD Indicators XSD <any> XSD <anyAttribute> XSD Substitution XSD Example

XSD Data

XSD String XSD Date XSD Numeric XSD Misc XSD Reference

Web Services

XML Services XML WSDL XML SOAP XML RDF XML RSS

References

DOM Node Types DOM Node DOM NodeList DOM NamedNodeMap DOM Document DOM Element DOM Attribute DOM Text DOM CDATA DOM Comment DOM XMLHttpRequest DOM Parser XSLT Elements XSLT/XPath Functions

XSLT - Transformation


Example study: How to transform XML into XHTML using XSLT?

The details of this example will be explained in the next chapter.


Correct Style Sheet Declaration

The root element that declares the document to be an XSL style sheet is <xsl:stylesheet> or <xsl:transform>.

Note: <xsl:stylesheet> and <xsl:transform> are completely synonymous and either can be used!

The correct way to declare an XSL style sheet according to the W3C XSLT Recommendation is:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

or:

<xsl:transform version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

To get access to the XSLT elements, attributes and features we must declare the XSLT namespace at the top of the document.

The xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" points to the official W3C XSLT namespace. If you use this namespace, you must also include the attribute version="1.0".


Start with a Raw XML Document

We want to transform the following XML document ("cdcatalog.xml") into XHTML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<catalog>
  <cd>
    <title>Empire Burlesque</title>
    <artist>Bob Dylan</artist>
    <country>USA</country>
    <company>Columbia</company>
    <price>10.90</price>
    <year>1985</year>
  </cd>
.
.
</catalog>

Viewing XML Files in IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera: Open the XML file (click on the link below) - The XML document will be displayed with color-coded root and child elements (except in Safari). Often, there is a plus (+) or minus sign (-) to the left of the elements that can be clicked to expand or collapse the element structure. Tip: To view the raw XML source, right-click in XML file and select "View Source"!

View "cdcatalog.xml"



Create an XSL Style Sheet

Then you create an XSL Style Sheet ("cdcatalog.xsl") with a transformation template:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
  <body>
  <h2>My CD Collection</h2>
  <table border="1">
    <tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Artist</th>
    </tr>
    <xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd">
    <tr>
      <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
      <td><xsl:value-of select="artist"/></td>
    </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </table>
  </body>
  </html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

View "cdcatalog.xsl"


Link the XSL Style Sheet to the XML Document

Add the XSL style sheet reference to your XML document ("cdcatalog.xml"):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="cdcatalog.xsl"?>
<catalog>
  <cd>
    <title>Empire Burlesque</title>
    <artist>Bob Dylan</artist>
    <country>USA</country>
    <company>Columbia</company>
    <price>10.90</price>
    <year>1985</year>
  </cd>
.
.
</catalog>

If you have an XSLT compliant browser it will nicely transform your XML into XHTML.

View the result

The details of the example above will be explained in the next chapters.