If you want to study XPath first, please read our XPath Tutorial. XSLT uses XPath to define the matching patterns for transformations. It can rearrange and sort elements, and test and make decisions about which elements to display, and a lot more.Ī common way to describe the transformation process is to say that XSLT transforms an XML source tree into an XML result tree. XSLT can also add new elements into the output file, or remove elements. Normally XSLT does this by transforming each XML element into an (X)HTML element. It is the part of XSL that is used to transform an XML document into another XML document, or another type of document that is recognized by a browser, like HTML and XHTML. XSLT is the most important part of the XSL Standards. If you want to study these subjects first, please read our XML Tutorial. XPath is a language for defining parts of an XML document.īefore you study XSLT you should have a basic understanding of XML and XML Namespaces.

XSLT is a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents. The rest of this tutorial is about XSLT - the language for transforming XML documents.īut you can also study our XPath Tutorial, XSL-FO Tutorial, W3C XSL activities. Think of XSL as a set of languages that can transform XML into XHTML, filter and sort XML data, define parts of an XML document, format XML data based on the data value, like displaying negative numbers in red, and output XML data to different media, like screens, paper, or voice. XSL-FO is a language for formatting XML documents.XPath is a language for defining parts of an XML document.XSLT is a language for transforming XML documents.There must be something in addition to the XML document that describes how the document should be displayed and that is XSL! The could mean an HTML table or a piece of furniture, and a browser does not know how to display it. XML does not use predefined tags (we can use any tags we like) and the meanings of these tags are not well understood. Telling a browser to display an element in a special font or color, is easily done with CSS. The element defines a table and a browser knows how to display it.Īdding styles to HTML elements is also simple. HTML uses predefined tags and the meanings of tags are well understood.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) started to develop XSL because there was a need for an XML based Stylesheet Language. XSL stands for e Xtensible Stylesheet Language. It started with XSL and ended up with XSLT, XPath, and XSL-FO.

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