<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="../make-menu.xsl" type="text/xsl"?><html>
<head>
<this-is section="xsl-elements" page="template" subpage=""/>
<!--
Generated at 2011-12-09T20:47:22.916Z--><title>Saxonica: XSLT and XQuery Processing: xsl:template</title>
<meta name="coverage" content="Worldwide"/>
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright Saxonica Ltd"/>
<meta name="title" content="Saxonica: XSLT and XQuery Processing: xsl:template"/>
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../saxondocs.css" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body class="main">
<h1>xsl:template</h1>
<p>The <code>xsl:template</code> element defines a processing rule for source elements or other nodes of a
particular type.</p>
<p>The type of node to be processed is identified by a pattern, written in the
mandatory <code>match</code> attribute. The most common form of pattern is simply an
element name. However, more complex patterns may also be used:
The syntax of patterns is given in more detail in <a class="bodylink" href="../xsl-elements/patterns.xml">XSLT Pattern Syntax</a></p>
<p>The following examples show some of the possibilities:</p>
<table>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>
<b>Pattern</b>
</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>
<b>Meaning</b>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>XXX</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any element whose name (tag) is XXX</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>
<b>*</b>
</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any element</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>XXX/YYY</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any YYY element
whose parent is an XXX</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>XXX//YYY</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any YYY element that has an ancestor named XXX</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>/*/XXX</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any XXX element that is immediately below
the root (document) element</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>*[@ID]</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any element with an ID attribute</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>XXX[1]</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any XXX element that is the first XXX child of
its parent element. (Note that this kind of pattern can be very inefficient: it is better to match all XXX
elements with a single template, and then use xsl:if to distinguish them)</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>SECTION[TITLE="Contents"]</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any SECTION element whose first TITLE child element
has the value "Contents"</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>A/TITLE | B/TITLE | C/TITLE</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any TITLE element whose parent is of type A or B or C</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>text()</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any character data node</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>@*</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches any attribute</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td content="para">
<p>/</p>
</td>
<td content="para">
<p>Matches the document node</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>The <code>xsl:template</code> element has an optional <code>mode</code> attribute. If this is present, the template
will only be matched when the same mode is used in the invoking <code>xsl:apply-templates</code> element.
The value can be a list of mode names, indicating that the template matches more than one mode; this list
can include the token <code>#default</code> to indicate that the template matches the default (unnamed)
mode. Alternatively the <code>mode</code> attribute can be set to <code>#all</code>, to indicate that the
template matches all modes. (This can be useful in conjunction with <code>xsl:next-match</code>: one
can write a template rule that matches in all modes, and then call <code>xsl:next-match</code> to continue
processing in the original mode.)</p>
<p>There is also an optional <code>name</code> attribute. If this is present, the template may be invoked
directly using <code>xsl:call-template</code>. The match attribute then becomes optional.</p>
<p>If there are several <code>xsl:template</code> elements that all match the same
node, the one that is chosen is determined by the optional <code>priority</code> attribute: the template
with highest priority wins. The priority is written as a floating-point number; the default priority
is 1. If two matching templates have the same priority, the one that appears last in the stylesheet
is used.</p>
<p class="subhead">Examples:</p>
<p>The following examples illustrate different kinds of template and match pattern.</p>
<p><b>Example 1</b>: a simple XSLT template for a particular element. This example causes
all <ptitle> elements in the source document to be output as HTML <h2>
elements.</p>
<div class="codeblock"
style="border: solid thin; background-color: #B1CCC7; padding: 2px">
<pre>
<code><xsl:template match="ptitle">
<h2>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</h2>
</xsl:template></code>
</pre>
</div>
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right"><a class="nav" href="text.xml">Next</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
