• Chapter 1: Getting Started with Stylus Studio®
• Chapter 2: Editing and Querying XML
• Chapter 3: Converting Non-XML Files to XML
• Chapter 4: Working with XSLT
  • Getting Started with XSLT
  • Tutorial: Understanding How Templates Work
    • Creating a New Sample Stylesheet
    • Understanding How the Default Templates Work
    • Editing the Template That Matches the Root Node
    • Creating a Template That Matches the book Element
    • Creating a Template That Matches the author Element
  • Working with Stylesheets
  • Creating Stylesheets That Generate HTML
  • Specifying Extension Functions in Stylesheets
  • Working with Templates
  • Using Third-Party XSLT Processors
  • Validating Result Documents
  • Post-processing Result Documents
  • Generating Formatting Objects
  • Generating Scalable Vector Graphics
  • Generating Java Code for XSLT
  • XSLT Instructions Quick Reference
• Chapter 5: Creating XSLT Using the XSLT Mapper
• Chapter 6: Debugging Stylesheets
• Chapter 7: Defining XML Schemas
• Chapter 8: Defining Document Type Definitions
• Chapter 9: Writing XPath Expressions
• Chapter 10: Working with XQuery in Stylus Studio
• Chapter 11: Composing Web Service Calls
• Chapter 12: Accessing Relational Data as XML
• Chapter 13: Building XML Pipelines
• Chapter 14: Publishing XML Data
• Chapter 15: Integrating with Third-Party File Systems
• Chapter 16: Extending Stylus Studio
• Chapter 17: The Stylus Studio Java API
• Chapter 18: Stylus Studio GUI Reference

Home > Online Product Documentation > Table of Contents > Tutorial: Understanding How Templates Work

Tutorial: Understanding How Templates Work

When Stylus Studio creates a new stylesheet, it contains one template, which matches the root node. However, this template is empty. If you apply the new stylesheet as is, the result document has no contents. To generate a result document with contents, you need to add instructions to the template that matches the root node.

Default Templates

All stylesheets have two default templates that do not appear in the stylesheet itself. It is important for you to understand how the default templates work so that you can

When you can do this, you can write a stylesheet that generates a dynamic Web page that displays your information.

About This Tutorial

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for defining a stylesheet that generates a dynamic Web page from an XML document. The tutorial shows how the default templates work, and it provides instructions for defining templates that instantiate the default templates. It also provides instructions for adding HTML markup to the stylesheet. The result is a dynamic Web page that displays the particular information you choose.

Each of the following topics contains instructions for defining the stylesheet. You should perform the steps in each topic before you move on to the next topic. After the first topic, some steps depend on actions you performed in a previous topic. This section organizes the process as follows:

For a simpler tutorial that shows you how to define a stylesheet that generates a dynamic Web page from a static HTML document, see Working with Stylesheets - Getting Started.

This tutorial duplicates some of the information in subsequent sections. For complete information, see the following topics: