internationalization via XSL

I have some questions regarding mapping an xml document to different languages
via XSL processing, which I assume is a reasonable use of XSL. I also assume
that there are idioms of usage that cover such needs but I haven't seen any
discussion of this

Suppose I have an xml fragment:

  <mapped-key>surname</mapped-key>

and I want to use XSL to transform this to:

  lastname

if operating in language 'en' and country 'US', to:

  surname

for 'en'/'GB', and

  nom de famille

for 'fr'.

I expect to have 1) language mapping files that can be named; and 2) some way
of conveying to the XSL processor from a controlling application what the
language and country codes are for an instance of processing.

What is the canonical way to accomplish 1)  and 2) above using XML/XSL? I
assume that 2) is accomplished by having the controlling application establish
an initial set of constants when the XSL processor is started and is thus an
implementation matter. What I'm not sure of is what sort of mechanism would be
used to handle essentially name/value pairs. Would each language mapping file
be an XML document? Is there then some way to express in XSL substituting a
fragment from one tree (the language mapping tree) into the resulting tree
during a walk of the 'input' xml document? That is can XSL be used to pluck
pieces from one tree based on nodes in a second tree.

Is a proper approach to include language/country specific stylesheet
components?

Sorry if this is a bit confused. I have built a prototype of an ad hoc xml
based template system and I see how to accomplish most of the functionality via
XSL.

Thanks and ciao,
Christine Tomlinson



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