RE: template matching

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Subject: RE: template matching
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 12:38:47 -0500

Roger,

At 10:52 AM 2/5/2004, you wrote:

Sorry - I wasn't being very clear. I was suprised to get output without an <xsl:value-of select="."/>

<xsl:value-of select="."/> is in the built-in default template for text nodes, and since the built-in template for element nodes instructs to <xsl:apply-templates select="child::node()"/>, even a blank or "null" stylesheet (that is, one containing no explicit templates at all) *will* give you your content.

It's actually a very worthwhile exercise for a beginner to run a blank stylesheet against a document, inspect the output, and from there to enhance the stylesheet with templates to match element nodes *starting at the bottom* (not going top down), checking the results of each enhancement as you go. The results, which many XSLT neophytes (especially those used to other programming languages) find to be counter-intuitive, are very instructive. You can't really explain them at all until you learn the processing model. If you do understand the processing model, you can likely predict what'll happen with every new template.

To get you started (should you or anyone choose to spend a little free time with this fun self-study), I provide you with a blank starter stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" >

</xsl:stylesheet>

Run this on your favorite XML document and see....

Cheers,
Wendell


======================================================================
Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list

Current Thread

RE: template matching, (continued)
- Varley, Roger - Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:52:25 -0500 (EST)
  - Peter Flynn - Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:20:27 -0500 (EST)
- Varley, Roger - Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:52:53 -0500 (EST)
  - David Carlisle - Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:43:49 -0500 (EST)
  - Wendell Piez - Thu, 5 Feb 2004 14:11:32 -0500 (EST) <=
  - Peter Flynn - Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:04:42 -0500 (EST)
- james walker - Fri, 6 Feb 2004 08:19:14 -0500 (EST)
  - David Carlisle - Fri, 6 Feb 2004 08:59:42 -0500 (EST)
- james walker - Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:24:27 -0500 (EST)

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Re: template matching, David Carlisle	Thread	RE: template matching, Peter Flynn
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