[Tutorial] XSL Basics Pt. I

pcxgamer · #1 17-Apr-2003, 06:37

XSL

So you what to learn XSL. Well set back and relax because I’m going to teach you how.
First there are a few things that you may what to know and remember XSL is a W3C Standard
But that doesn’t mean that everyone is ready for it. The first two parts of the language (XSLT
And XPath ) became a W3C recommendation in Nov 99. The full XSL recommendation including
XSL formatting became a W3C recommendation in Oct 01. So you may ask what all this means
Well it means that some web browsers will not work or will have problems displaying all option available in XSL. So I would
Recommend that if your able to use IE 6 or Netscape 6 do IE 5 or 5.5 will not work with all of this
Articale. Ok lets learn a little about XSL shall we?

XSL consists of three parts:

XSLT (a language for transforming XML documents)
Xpath (a language for defining parts of an XML document)
XSL Formatting Objects (a vocabulary for formatting XML documents)

If this is all confusing you think of it this way. XSL is a language that can transform XML into XHTML,
A language that can filter and sort XML data, a language that can define parts of an XML document
A language that can format XML data based on the data value. A language that can output XML data
To different devices, like screen, paper or voice all of this from XSL. Ok so lets get are hands dirty.

The root element that declares the document to be XSL style sheet is
<xsl:stylesheet> and <xsl:transform>, you can use either.

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

HTML Code:


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

or

HTML Code:


<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 the namespace, you must include the version="1.0". If your using IE 6 or Netscape 6 you should use one of the codes above.

Lets take a look at how to transform an XML document (gamelist.xml) into XHTML:

HTML Code:


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

<gamelist>
   <game>
      <title>Homeworld</title>
      <developer>Relic</developer>
      <publisher>Sierra</publisher>
      <genre>Strategy</genre>
      <price>49.95</price>
      <year>1999</year>
   </game>


</gamelist>

First you create an XSL Style Sheet (gamelist.xsl) with a transformation template:

HTML Code:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<body>
<h2>Game List</h2>
<table border="1">
<tr bgcolor="#6666FF">
<th align="left">Title</th>
<th align="left">Developer</th>
<th align="left">Publisher</th>
</tr>
<xsl:for-each select="gamelist/game">
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="developer"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="publisher"/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Finally, Return to your first XML document (gamelist.xml) and add an XSL Style Sheet reference to your XML document like so:

HTML Code:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="gamelist.xsl"?>
<gamelist>
   <game>
      <title>Homeworld</title>
      <developer>Relic</developer>
      <publisher>Sierra</publisher>
      <genre>Strategy</genre>
      <price>49.95</price>
      <year>1999</year>
   </game>


</gamelist>

That’s it your done, You have just learned how to transform XML into XHTML using XSL.
Well that’s it for my first article. Next time we will break down the example here and discuss XSL in greater detail including XSL template, value-of and for-each.

[gid=http://www.desilva.biz/forum/viewtopic573.php]XSL Basics Pt. II[/gid]

JdS · #2 17-Apr-2003, 07:14

What is the href value here?

HTML Code:


<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="cdcatalog.xsl"?>

pcxgamer · #3 17-Apr-2003, 07:16

A mistake sorry I'll edit that it should be:

HTML Code:


<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="gamelist.xsl"?>

jrobbio · #4 17-Apr-2003, 07:33

Is there anywhere I can see where this is used? It looks quite interesting.

pcxgamer · #5 17-Apr-2003, 07:44

Here you go you can check out the source but if you would like the file I'll send then to you

XML

jrobbio · #6 17-Apr-2003, 07:46

How come it doesn't show the price and year their?

pcxgamer · #7 17-Apr-2003, 07:48

I'm checking on that right now. I didn't really set that up for display. But I'm check right now I'll have it fix shortly.
Sorry

jrobbio · #8 17-Apr-2003, 07:50

No need to apologise, I wasn't meaning that I was just trying to work out what was going on and making sure it wasn't at my end

pcxgamer · #9 17-Apr-2003, 07:59

Are you use IE 6 or netscape 6?

jrobbio · #10 17-Apr-2003, 08:05

IE6, I tried it in Mozilla but like you said, it didn't like it. I'm surprised since Mozilla is supposed to be quite forward in new things like that.

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