XSLT Syntax

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Let’s suppose we have the following sample XML file, students.xml, which is required to be transformed into a well-formatted HTML document.

students.xml

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<class> 
   <student rollno = "393">
      <firstname>Dinkar</firstname> 
      <lastname>Kad</lastname> 
      <nickname>Dinkar</nickname> 
      <marks>85</marks>
   </student> 
   <student rollno = "493"> 
      <firstname>Vaneet</firstname> 
      <lastname>Gupta</lastname> 
      <nickname>Vinni</nickname> 
      <marks>95</marks>
   </student> 
   <student rollno = "593"> 
      <firstname>Jasvir</firstname> 
      <lastname>Singh</lastname> 
      <nickname>Jazz</nickname> 
      <marks>90</marks> 
   </student> 
</class>

We need to define an XSLT style sheet document for the above XML document to meet the following criteria −

  • Page should have a title Students.

  • Page should have a table of student details.

  • Columns should have following headers: Roll No, First Name, Last Name, Nick Name, Marks

  • Table must contain details of the students accordingly.

Step 1: Create XSLT document

Create an XSLT document to meet the above requirements, name it as students.xsl and save it in the same location where students.xml lies.

students.xsl

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<!-- xsl stylesheet declaration with xsl namespace: 
Namespace tells the xlst processor about which 
element is to be processed and which is used for output purpose only 
--> 
<xsl:stylesheet version = "1.0" 
xmlns:xsl = "http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">   
<!-- xsl template declaration:  
template tells the xlst processor about the section of xml 
document which is to be formatted. It takes an XPath expression. 
In our case, it is matching document root element and will 
tell processor to process the entire document with this template. 
--> 
   <xsl:template match = "/"> 
      <!-- HTML tags 
         Used for formatting purpose. Processor will skip them and browser 
            will simply render them. 
      --> 
		
      <html> 
         <body> 
            <h2>Students</h2> 
				
            <table border = "1"> 
               <tr bgcolor = "#9acd32"> 
                  <th>Roll No</th> 
                  <th>First Name</th> 
                  <th>Last Name</th> 
                  <th>Nick Name</th> 
                  <th>Marks</th> 
               </tr> 
				
               <!-- for-each processing instruction 
               Looks for each element matching the XPath expression 
               --> 
				
               <xsl:for-each select="class/student"> 
                  <tr> 
                     <td> 
                        <!-- value-of processing instruction 
                        process the value of the element matching the XPath expression 
                        --> 
                        <xsl:value-of select = "@rollno"/> 
                     </td> 
						
                     <td><xsl:value-of select = "firstname"/></td> 
                     <td><xsl:value-of select = "lastname"/></td> 
                     <td><xsl:value-of select = "nickname"/></td> 
                     <td><xsl:value-of select = "marks"/></td> 
						
                  </tr> 
               </xsl:for-each> 
					
            </table> 
         </body> 
      </html> 
   </xsl:template>  
</xsl:stylesheet>

Step 2: Link the XSLT Document to the XML Document

Update student.xml document with the following xml-stylesheet tag. Set href value to students.xsl

<?xml version = "1.0"?> 
<?xml-stylesheet type = "text/xsl" href = "students.xsl"?> 
<class> 
... 
</class>

Step 3: View the XML Document in Internet Explorer

students.xml

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type = "text/xsl" href = "students.xsl"?> 
<class> 
   <student rollno = "393"> 
      <firstname>Dinkar</firstname> 
      <lastname>Kad</lastname> 
      <nickname>Dinkar</nickname> 
      <marks>85</marks> 
   </student> 
   <student rollno = "493"> 
      <firstname>Vaneet</firstname> 
      <lastname>Gupta</lastname> 
      <nickname>Vinni</nickname> 
      <marks>95</marks> 
   </student> 
   <student rollno = "593"> 
      <firstname>Jasvir</firstname> 
      <lastname>Singh</lastname> 
      <nickname>Jazz</nickname> 
      <marks>90</marks> 
   </student> 
</class>

Output

Formatted Output
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