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<title>A brief introduction to XSL</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="reference.css" type="text/css"><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.59.2"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="DocBook XSL Stylesheet Documentation"><link rel="up" href="publishing.html" title="Chapter 1. DocBook XSL"><link rel="previous" href="publishing.html" title="Chapter 1. DocBook XSL"><link rel="next" href="ch01s03.html" title="XSL processing model"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">A brief introduction to XSL</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="publishing.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 1. DocBook XSL</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch01s03.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="d0e286"></a>A brief introduction to XSL</h2></div></div><div></div></div><p>XSL is both a transformation language and a
formatting language. The XSLT transformation part lets you
scan through a document's structure and rearrange its
content any way you like. You can write out the content
using a different set of XML tags, and generate text as
needed. For example, you can scan through a document to
locate all headings and then insert a generated table of
contents at the beginning of the document, at the same time
writing out the content marked up as HTML. XSL is also a
rich formatting language, letting you apply typesetting
controls to all components of your output. With a good
formatting backend, it is capable of producing high quality
printed pages.</p><p>An XSL stylesheet is written using XML syntax, and is
itself a well-formed XML document. That makes the basic
syntax familiar, and enables an XML processor to check for
basic syntax errors. The stylesheet instructions use
special element names, which typically begin with
<tt>xsl:</tt> to distinguish them from any XML
tags you want to appear in the output. The XSL namespace is
identified at the top of the stylesheet file. As with other
XML, any XSL elements that are not empty will require a
closing tag. And some XSL elements have specific attributes
that control their behavior. It helps to keep a good XSL
reference book handy.</p><p>Here is an example of a simple XSL stylesheet applied
to a simple XML file to generate HTML output.</p><div class="example"><a name="d0e298"></a><p class="title"><b>Example 1.4. Simple XML file</b></p><pre class="programlisting"><?xml version="1.0"?>
<document>
<title>Using a mouse</title>
<para>It's easy to use a mouse. Just roll it
around and click the buttons.</para>
</document></pre></div><div class="example"><a name="d0e303"></a><p class="title"><b>Example 1.5. Simple XSL stylesheet</b></p><pre class="programlisting"><?xml version='1.0'?>
<xsl:stylesheet
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'>
<xsl:output method="html"/>
<xsl:template match="document">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>
<xsl:value-of select="./title"/>
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</BODY>
</HTML>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="title">
<H1><xsl:apply-templates/></H1>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="para">
<P><xsl:apply-templates/></P>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
</pre></div><div class="example"><a name="d0e308"></a><p class="title"><b>Example 1.6. HTML output</b></p><pre class="programlisting"><HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Using a mouse</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Using a mouse</H1>
<P>It's easy to use a mouse. Just roll it
around and click the buttons.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
</pre></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="publishing.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="publishing.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch01s03.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 1. DocBook XSL </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> XSL processing model</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
