Category: XSL Languages

Adobe Dreamweaver

Drag & drop XML schema elements from the Bindings panel, onto the Design view, not the code view. When you do this, the statement that appears in the code view is properly tagged as <xsl:value-of select=”Bla bla bla”/>

In a repeating region, the expression for the repeated element isn’t the full-qualified name of the element. It is simply the name of the element (its local name).

<xsl:for-each select="project/file/class/property">
        <p><xsl:value-of select="name" disable-output-escaping="yes"/></p>
</xsl:for-each>

In oXygen XML Editor

Use Master Files as containers to manage housekeeping for things like intellesense (Content Completion Assistant), includes, validation, etc.

These are the XSL files that are not imported or included in other files. The files that included or imported are known as Modules. You can have multiple Master Files in your project, and each Master File can include references to files that are common to other Master Files.
As a rule of thumb, break large XSL files into multiple files, and use one of them to include the others.

Ctrl+Click on a template name in an XPath expression in an XSL file – to find out where it is included elsewhere in the project.

“Component Dependency Helper” – Click the little light bulb that appears in place of the line number.
To search for declarations and references, and to rename components.

When Creating an XSL

When you use oXygen to do this, it automatically creates an XSL file that contains all the needed namespace declarations.

When you save the XSL file, set the transformation scenario. All you have to do is select the XML file for the source (the document with the current focus will automatically become the XSL file).

You can creates templates easily by dragging and dropping nodes from the XSLT/Query Input pane!

Debugging Transformations

In the XSLT Debugger Perspective, click the blue right-arrow to run the transformation (Run), not the Run to End.

Enable XHTML output.

Then you can double-click parts of the HTML output to see where the part of the XSL file that generated it.

You can also double-click line items in the Output Mapping Stack to highlight the associated line in the XSL file.
Think of the Output Mapping Stack as a trail of breadcrumbs.

To see the transform in process, set breakpoints, and click Run.
This is better than stepping through the code, one line at a time.

Conditional Breakpoints

Open the Breakpoints tab.

You can set breakpoints that evaluate to boolean results.

Scenario-based XSLT Debugging

This allows you to specify which files to use for the input XML

From the Editor perspective, click the Debug Scenario button.

Folding

You can add “foldable”, “folded”, and “not-foldable-child” declarations to CSS rules for style selectors.

E.g.,

sect1
{
        foldable: true;
        not-foldable-child: figure;
}

figure
{
        foldable: true;
        folded: true;
        not-foldable-child: title;
}

XSLT Stylesheet Elements

XSL Parameters

A template takes a paramater when you declare a parameter, but you don’t initialize it.

E.g., <xsl:param name=”tableTitle”/>

Modules

A module is an XSL file that you intend to include in the main stylesheet.

Each module defines generic XSLT parameters and templates that can be used from different stylesheets.

E.g.,

<xsl:import href=”params.xsl”/> <xsl:import href=”common-code.xsl”/> <xsl:import href=”page-layout.xsl”/>

Use the Validation Scenarios to validate such compound/interconnected XSL stylesheets.

Selecting Nodes

See: http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/xpath_syntax.asp

nodename Selects all nodes with the name “nodename”. / Selects from the root node. // Selects nodes in the document from the current node that match the selection no matter where they are. . Selects the current node. .. Selects the parent of the current node. @ Selects attributes.

bookstore Selects all nodes with the name “bookstore” /bookstore Selects the root element bookstore

Note: If the path starts with a slash ( / ) it always represents an absolute path to an element!

bookstore/book Selects all book elements that are children of bookstore //book Selects all book elements no matter where they are in the document bookstore//book Selects all book elements that are descendant of the bookstore element. //@lang Selects all attributes that are named lang

XPath Predicates

Used to find specific nodes.

Predicates always appear inside brackets “[]”.

/bookstore/book[1] Selects the first book element that is the child of the bookstore element. /bookstore/book[last()] Selects the last book element that is the child of the bookstore element

Selecting Unknown Nodes

These are the XPath wildcards.

\* Matches any element node. @* Matches any attribute node. node() Matches any node of any kind.

/bookstore/* Selects all the child nodes of the bookstore element. //* Selects all elements in the document. //title[@*] Selects all title elements which have any attribute.

Selecting Several Paths

By using the | operator in an XPath expression you can select several paths. You use the | operator to combine XPath expressions.

Note: In XPath, you use the “OR” operator for AND’ing (sort of like bitwise OR’ing is actually AND’ing.).

//book/title | //book/price Selects all the title AND price elements of all book elements. //title | //price Selects all the title AND price elements in the document. /bookstore/book/title | //price Selects all the title elements of the book element of the bookstore element AND all the price elements in the document.

XPath Axes

An XPath Axis specifies the tree-relationship between the selected nodes and the current node.

ancestor Selects all ancestors (parent, grandparent, etc.) of the current node. ancestor-or-self Selects all ancestors (parent, grandparent, etc.) of the current node and the current node itself. attribute Selects all attributes of the current node. child Selects all children of the current node. descendant Selects all descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) of the current node. descendant-or-self Selects all descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) of the current node and the current node itself. following Selects everything in the document after the closing tag of the current node. following-sibling Selects all siblings after the current node. namespace Selects all namespace nodes of the current node. parent Selects the parent of the current node. preceding Selects all nodes that appear before the current node in the document, except ancestors, attribute nodes and namespace nodes. preceding-sibling Selects all siblings before the current node self Selects the current node

Location Path Expression

A location path can be absolute or relative.

Each step is evaluated against the nodes in the current node-set.

An absolute location path starts with a slash ( / ) and a relative location path does not. In both cases, the location path consists of one or more steps, each separated by a slash:

/step/step/...

step/step/...

XPath Operators

An XPath expression returns either a:

• node-set
• string
• Boolean
• number