Overview of XSLT
XSLT stands for EXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations.
1. XSLT stands for XSL Transformations
2. XSLT transforms an XML document into another XML document
3. XSLT uses XPath to navigate in XML documents
4. XSLT is a W3C Recommendation
As we know XML is light weight and we can also store sensitive data in that. XSLT
is very useful for wireless applications. Using XSLT we can create html pages by
traversing a XML document
Below example illustrates how to transform a xml document to html.
XML file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<Employees>
<Employee>
<name>xxx</name>
<dept>abc</dept>
<country>USA</country>
<salary>2000</salary>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<name>xyz</name>
<dept>dddd</dept>
<country>USA</country>
<salary>2000</salary>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<name>Abc</name>
<dept>dsds</dept>
<country>USA</country>
<salary>3000</salary>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<name>ccc</name>
<dept>HR</dept>
<country>USA</country>
<salary>54545</salary>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<name>aaa</name>
<dept>Admin</dept>
<country>USA</country>
<salary>54454545</salary>
</Employee>
</Employees>
|
XSLT file
<?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>XYZ Company</h2>
<table border="1">
<tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
<th>Name</th>
<th>Dept</th>
<th>Country</th>
<th>Salary</th>
</tr>
<xsl:for-each select="Employees/Employee">
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="name" /></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="dept" /></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="country" /></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="salary" /></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
|
Output
XYZ Company
| Name | Dept | Country | Salary |
|---|
| xxx | abc | USA | 2000 |
| xyz | dddd | USA | 2000 |
| Abc | dsds | USA | 3000 |
| ccc | HR | USA | 54545 |
| aaa | Admin | USA | 54454545 |
Conclusion
XSLT is used to transform an XML document into below format
XML document
HTML
XHTML
Normally XSLT does this by transforming each XML element into an XHTML element.