Skip to main content

XSLT Syntax

Let's discover the syntax through the transformation of XML to XHTML using XSLT.

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 synonymous.

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

<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

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".

Transformation steps​

1. Raw XML Document​

Consider the following XML file called "books.xml" which is required to be transformed into a XHTML document.

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

<bookstore>
    <book category="children">
        <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
        <author>J K. Rowling</author>
        <year>2005</year>
        <price>29.99</price>
    </book>
    <book category="web">
        <title lang="en">XQuery Tips</title>
        <author>Tom Nolan</author>
        <year>2022</year>
        <price>39.99</price>
    </book>
    <book category="web">
        <title lang="en">Learn XML</title>
        <author>Tutorial Reference</author>
        <year>2022</year>
        <price>9.99</price>
    </book>
</bookstore>
note

If you open the "books.xml" XML file in your browser, the XML document will be displayed with color-coded root and child elements.

2. Create an XSL Style Sheet​

Then, let's create the XSL StyleSheet with a transformation template.

Name it as "books.xsl" and save it in the same location of "books.xml".

<?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>The Bookstore</h2>
            <table border="1">
                <tr bgcolor="#6565d5">
                    <th>Title</th>
                    <th>Author</th>
                    <th>Year</th>
                    <th>Price</th>
                </tr>  
                <xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">
                    <tr>
                        <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
                        <td><xsl:value-of select="author"/></td>
                        <td><xsl:value-of select="year"/></td>
                        <td><xsl:value-of select="price"/></td>
                    </tr>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </table>
        </body>
    </html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Finally, add the XSL stylesheet reference to your XML document ("books.xml"):

books.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books.xsl"?>

<bookstore>
    <book category="children">
        <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
        <author>J K. Rowling</author>
        <year>2005</year>
        <price>29.99</price>
    </book>
    <book category="web">
        <title lang="en">XQuery Tips</title>
        <author>Tom Nolan</author>
        <year>2022</year>
        <price>39.99</price>
    </book>
    <book category="web">
        <title lang="en">Learn XML</title>
        <author>Tutorial Reference</author>
        <year>2022</year>
        <price>9.99</price>
    </book>
</bookstore>
note

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

Table of Contents