RE: XSLT Templates in a Web Browser

In general the relationship of source documents to stylesheets is
many-to-many, and naming your source document within the stylesheet is just
as unsatisfactory as naming the stylesheet within the source document. If
you're going to use client-side transformation, it's best to control the
process from Javascript within your HTML pages, using an API such as Sarissa
to achieve cross-browser portability.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Stone [mailto:stonethomasjames@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 31 December 2006 09:37
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  XSLT Templates in a Web Browser
> 
>    This is a post of one way to test multiple XSLT templates 
> producing web browser output against a single source XML document.
> 
>    I am relatively new to XSLT, though I have been 
> programming since the Commodore 64.  While testing the 
> intricacies of the language, I primarily used it to transform 
> XML data into HTML output.  The XML document referenced an 
> XSTL stylesheet.  When I double-clicked on the .xml file, the 
> web browser found its associated XSLT stylesheet and 
> displayed the HTML output.  This really helped in getting 
> "hands-on" experience with instant feed-back.
> 
>    The least satifactory part of this process was having to 
> edit my XML document every time I wanted to display the data 
> differently - to change the <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" 
> href="Transform.xml"?> line.  I an old control freak when it 
> comes to data files, and storing the desired "program" to run 
> against a data file INSIDE the data file just didn't feel 
> right.  The solution I came up with uses the document() function.
> 
>    The trick I found was to rename my XSLT stylesheet to .xml 
> so the browser will open it and look for an associated 
> stylesheet instead of opening the source XML document.  The 
> following is an example of my stylesheet.
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <?xml-stylesheet 
> type="text/xsl" href="Transform.xml"?>
> 
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
>   <xsl:variable name="transform_document">Test.xml</xsl:variable>
>   
>   <xsl:template match="/">
>     <xsl:apply-templates 
> select="document($transform_document)" mode="document"/>
>   </xsl:template>
>   
>   <xsl:template match="/" mode="document">
>     <xsl:apply-templates />
>   </xsl:template>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> 
>    This makes my stylesheet its own stylesheet.  The document 
> I want it to transform is stored in a variablee near the top 
> of the sheet - in this case it is called "Test.xml".  If I 
> make a copy of this stylesheet, and change the 
> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="Transform.xml"?> line 
> to match the copy's name, I can make changes in the second 
> stylesheet and immediately compare the changes in resulting 
> HTML output against my original.  I did not have to edit my 
> XML document.
> 
>    A second benefit of this is that the source XML document 
> does not have to be named as .xml.  Virtual Reality Modeling 
> Language text content in an X3D file could be referenced by 
> changing the transform_document variable declaration to state 
> "HelloWorld.x3d".  An Excel document that has been saved in 
> XML format or the Open Office documents could be source 
> documents just as easily, showing the data in a web browser 
> instead of their native application.
> 
> --
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