XSL - Transformation (XSLT)

Example study: How to transform XML into XHTML using XSL.

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 XSL 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">

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

Note: If you are using IE 6.0 or Netscape 6 you should use one of the codes above.

Incorrect Style Sheet Declaration

This was the correct way to declare an XSL style sheet according to the W3C XSL Working Draft:

<xsl:stylesheet
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">

Note: The declaration above is OUTDATED, but if you are using IE 5 you should use the (incorrect) code above.

Start with your XML Document

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

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<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>

To view an XML / XSL document in IE 5.0 (and higher) you can click on a link, type the URL in the address bar, or double-click on the name of an XML file in a files folder.

To view an XML / XSL document in Netscape 6 you'll have to open the XML file and then right-click in XML file and select "View Page Source".

View XML file

Create an XSL Style Sheet

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

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<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 align="left">Title</th>
      <th align="left">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 XSL file

Link the XSL Style Sheet to the XML Document

Finally, add an XSL Style Sheet reference to your XML document ("cdcatalog.xml"):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?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 XSL compliant browser it will nicely transform your XML into XHTML!

View the result in IE 6 or Netscape 6

View the result in IE 5

Example Explained

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

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