XSLT Introduction

You might remember from a previous lesson that we can use a language called Extensible Styles Language XSL to format our XML documents. XSL actually comes in two parts - a transformation language (XSLT) and a formatting language using formatting objects.

This section of the XML tutorial covers XSLT.

XSLT, which stands for Extensible Styles Language Transformations, enables you to transform XML documents into another form. For example, you can take your XML document, combine it with HTML/CSS, and it will look completely different when viewing it in your user agent/browser.

XSLT Documents

An XSLT document is a valid XML document. An XSLT document consists of a number of elements/tags/attributes. These can be XSL elements or elements from another language (such as HTML). When you look at an XSLT document, you will notice that it is constructed like any other XML document.

Processing a Transformation

A transformation can take place in one of three locations:

• On the server
• On the client (for example, your web browser)
• With a standalone program

The examples in this tutorial will use the client for transforming the XML documents.

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