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Re: Newbie question - does the built-in template rules
Subject: Re: Newbie question - does the built-in template rules output the attribute node?
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:53:43 -0400
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Paul,
You asked this question a few days ago; catching up on the list I
came across it, but it seems it hasn't been answered yet.
At 10:43 AM 10/13/2005, you wrote:
Another newbie question, this time about XSL itself
rather than xsltproc. (sorry!)
Please not to apologize!
Quoting from XSLT for Dummies, it says:
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
For text and attribute nodes, a built-in template rule copies their
text through into the result tree:
<xsl:template match="text()|@*">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>
In this rule, the match pattern returns all text nodes with text() and
all attribute nodes with @*.
The xsl:value-of instruction then transforms the current node to the
result tree as text.
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
However, if I run this against a blank stylesheet:
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
<!-- miniscore.xml -->
<score id="1">Text here
<film name="I should see this attribute">A Little Princess</film>
<composer>Patrick Doyle</composer>
<year>1995</year>
<grade>100</grade>
</score>
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
The result is:
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>Text here
A Little Princess
Patrick Doyle
1995
100
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
However, since the attribute node name is supposedly matched,
I expected:
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>Text here
I should see this attribute
A Little Princess
Patrick Doyle
1995
100
------------------------------------8<----------------------------------
Can anyone tell me where I'm wrong?
What the dummies book left out (or maybe is says it somewhere else)
is what the built-in template rule for elements does:
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:apply-templates select="child::*"/>
</xsl:template>
... with the effect of telling the processor "keep going: process
this element's children".
The critical detail is that *attributes are not counted among an
element's children*.
In other words, the built-in traversal, running along the child::
axis by default, never selects attributes, so they are never matched
by their own built-in template.
To tweak this, try a stylesheet that has just this one template:
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:apply-templates select="child::* | attribute::*"/>
</xsl:template>
you will find your attribute values appearing.
BTW select="child::* | attribute::*" can be shortened as select="*|@*".
We like to say that attributes have been disinherited; they know who
their parents are, but their parents, when asked for their children,
never mention them. They are definitely second-class citizens in the
data model.
I hope that helps,
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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Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
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