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XSLT <xsl:template> Element

An XSL style sheet consists of one or more set of rules that are called templates.

A template contains rules to apply when a specified node is matched.

<xsl:template> Element​

<xsl:template> element is used to build templates. It defines a way to reuse templates in order to generate the desired output for nodes of a particular type/context.

Syntax​

The syntax of <xsl:template> is as follows

<xsl:template 
   name=Qname 
   match=Pattern 
   priority=number 
   mode=QName>
</xsl:template>

Attributes​

The table describes the meaning of the attributes of <xsl:template>:

NameDescription
nameName of the element on which template is to be applied.
matchPattern which signifies the element(s) on which template is to be applied.
priorityPriority number of a template. Matching template with low priority is not considered in from in front of high priority template.
modeAllows element to be processed multiple times to produce a different result each time.

Example​

Let's see an example:

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>
books.xsl
<?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>
note

The <xsl:stylesheet> element defines that this document is an XSLT style sheet document (along with the version number and XSLT namespace attributes).

The <xsl:template> element defines a template and the content inside the <xsl:template> element defines some HTML to write to the output.

The match="/" attribute associates the template with the root of the XML source document.

note

In the example, <xsl:value-of> element is used to select values from the XML elements.

You can learn more in the XSLT value-of chapter.

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