XSLT - Transformation
The XSL Style Sheet
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">
The 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>
Tip: To view the raw XML source, right-click in XML file and select "View Page Source"!
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>
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>
Now the browser will nicely transform your XML into XHTML: View the result.
The details of the example above will be explained in the next chapters.
