XSL - Transformation
Transforming XML to HTML
What if you want to transform the following XML document (open it with IE5/6) into HTML?
Consider the following...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO8859-1" ?>
<CATALOG>
<CD>
<TITLE>Empire Burlesque</TITLE>
<ARTIST>Bob Dylan</ARTIST>
<COUNTRY>USA</COUNTRY>
<COMPANY>Columbia</COMPANY>
<PRICE>10.90</PRICE>
<YEAR>1985</YEAR>
</CD>
.
.
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 | Consider the following XSL document (open it with IE5/6) as an HTML template to populate a HTML document with XML data: |
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<body>
<table border="2" bgcolor="yellow">
<tr>
<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> |
| In the above file, the xsl:for-each element locates elements in the XML document and repeats a template for each one. |
| The select attribute describes the element in the source document. |
| The syntax for this attribute is called an XSL Pattern, and works like navigating a file system where a forward slash (/) selects subdirectories. |
| The xsl:value-of element selects a child in the hierarchy and inserts the content of that child into the template. |
| Since an XSL style sheet is an XML file itself, the file begins with an xml declaration. |
| The xsl:stylesheet element indicates that this document is a style sheet. |
| The template has also been wrapped with xsl:template match="/" to indicate that this is a template that corresponds to the root (/) of the XML source document. |
If you add a reference to the above stylesheet to your original XML document (look at line 2), your browser will nicely transform your XML document into HTML (open it in IE5/6):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO8859-1" ?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="cd_catalog.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>
.
.
. |