value-of or apply-templates: What is "best"?

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Subject: value-of or apply-templates: What is "best"?
From: Kaz <kaz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 23:03:32 +0200

Hello all,

I'm having a hard time understanding when and why I should use value-of or apply-templates.

Assuming a simple XML document:

<root_element>
   <head>
       Name of website
   </head>
   <content>
       <headline>
           Interesting headline
       </headline>
       <body>
           Even more interesting body.
       </body>
   </content>
   <footer>
       Copyright not reserved. Use as you please!
   </footer>
</root_element>

I've written two XSL scripts to handle the above. The first one looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:output method="xml" encoding="ISO-8859-1" omit-xml-declaration="yes" doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"/>

<xsl:template match="root_element"> <html> <head> <title> <xsl:value-of select="head"/> </title> </head> <body> <xsl:apply-templates select="content"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="footer"/> </body> </html> </xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="content">
   <h4>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="headline"/>
   </h4>
   <p>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="body"/>
   </p>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="content/headline">
   <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="content/body">
   <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="footer"> <hr /> <p style="font-size: 11px;"> <xsl:apply-templates/> </p> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>

And the second looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:output method="xml" encoding="ISO-8859-1" omit-xml-declaration="yes" doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"/>

<xsl:template match="root_element"> <html> <head> <title> <xsl:value-of select="head"/> </title> </head> <body> <h4> <xsl:value-of select="content/headline"/> </h4> <p> <xsl:value-of select="content/body"/> </p> <hr /> <p style="font-size: 11px;"> <xsl:value-of select="footer"/> </p> </body> </html> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>

It's obvious that the second one is much shorter and perhaps also a bit more "readable", but is it the right way? Is there even a right way?

I feel somewhat lost here. I'm sure there are strengths and weaknesses to both methods - I just can't put my finger on exactly what is good and bad.

I'm looking for a bit of enlightment on the XSL way of doing things. Hope someone can help.

Sincerely,
Thomas

Current Thread
value-of or apply-templates: What is "best"? Kaz - 30 May 2007 21:04:15 -0000 <= Kaz - 30 May 2007 21:17:47 -0000 Michael Kay - 30 May 2007 22:12:21 -0000 J. S. Rawat - 31 May 2007 03:52:40 -0000

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RE: XSL Import using relative, Michael Kay	Thread	Re: value-of or apply-templat, Kaz
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