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Re: Formating XML data in XSLT

• Subject: Re: Formating XML data in XSLT
• From: "Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@c...>
• Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:20:41 -0500
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <006e01c3a7d1$8b56c970$5501a8c0@d...>
• References: <006e01c3a7d1$8b56c970$5501a8c0@d...>
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Cleverson Schmidt wrote:

> 
> How can I format data generated by a XSLT engine?
> I am trying to write a xml-to-java application where a class file is
> defined in a XML structure like
> 

Check Dave Pawson's xslt FAQ pages.  Basically, you do things like

- use the text output method.
- Use CDATA sections for boilerplate parts.
- Do not add formatting whitespace that you do not want to appear in the 
output.
- Use normalize-space() to eliminate extra unintended whitespace in 
character data.
- use constructions like <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text> if you cannot get 
the right line breaks any other way.  You can also just embed a newline 
right into an xsl:text element, and you can create a global variable for it.
- Optionally, create an internal subset DTD and define entities for 
newlines and other common character items (although I have not had to do 
this).

With these techniques and othersimilar ones you may invent, it is 
possible to write xslt code that is fairly readable and will produce 
adequately formatted output code.  Of course, it gets harder if you want 
to indent differently depending on some nesting level, but that too 
could be handled - with recursive templates.

Cheers,

Tom P

• References:
  • Formating XML data in XSLT
    • From: "Cleverson Schmidt" <cschmidt@f...>

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