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XSLT: Transforming into non-xml content?

Answer 1

+1 A:

Yes, you can, by using the xsl:output element in your stylesheet.

GSerg 2010-05-01 12:04:25

Answer 2

+4 A:

You can use <xsl:output> to specify the output format, which doesn't have to be xml, see this reference page.

However, if you are outputting html, no modern browser should complain even if you do put the closing tags, so using your example above, i believe all browser should be ok with :-

<HTML>
<BODY>
   <IMG src="file1.png"></IMG><BR></BR>
   <IMG src="file2.png"></IMG><BR></BR>
   ...
   <IMG src="filen.png"></IMG><BR></BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>

So not too sure why you don't want to put the closing tag, unless i'm missing something.

Update: Added example of non xml output

Given this stylesheet:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"&gt;
    <xsl:output method="text" />
    <xsl:template match="/filenames">

    <xsl:for-each select="filename">
    INSERT INTO Documents (Filename) VALUES ('<xsl:value-of select="." />')
    </xsl:for-each>

    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

and this input xml:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<filenames>
    <filename>file1.png</filename>
    <filename>file2.png</filename>
    <filename>file3.png</filename>
</filenames>

You get output like this:-

INSERT INTO Documents (Filename) VALUES ('file1.png')

INSERT INTO Documents (Filename) VALUES ('file2.png')

INSERT INTO Documents (Filename) VALUES ('file3.png')

Alan Chan 2010-05-01 12:08:09

@Alan Chan: It's not so much generating invalid HTML that browsers might be able to deal with; it's generating valid HTML so that parsers can handle it.

Ian Boyd 2010-05-01 23:54:37

@Ian: ok i see. Well, if you use <xsl:output method="html"> to specify that the output is html, and then use <xsl:element> to create the html tags ... e.g. <xsl:element name="IMG"><xsl:attribute name="src">file1.png</xsl:attribute></xsl:element> then the xslt processor should produce the <IMG>, <BR>, etc., tags without the closing tag as required for html.

Alan Chan 2010-05-02 16:13:39

Answer 3

+4 A:

No matter how you create your IMG tags,

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"&gt;
<xsl:output method="html"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<HTML>
<BODY>
   <xsl:element name="IMG">
   <xsl:attribute name="src">file1.png</xsl:attribute>
   </xsl:element>
   <IMG src="file2.png"></IMG>
   <IMG src="filen.png"/>
</BODY>
</HTML>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The output method "html" will cause the IMG tags to not be closed.

<HTML>
<BODY><IMG src="file1.png"><IMG src="file2.png"><IMG src="filen.png"></BODY>
</HTML>

Darrel Miller 2010-05-01 12:14:52

When i reproduce this, the closing tags are included. At the same time, i sometimes might want to include optional closing tags, and sometimes i might not want to. XSLT needs to be able to transform xml into my **desired** output format.

Ian Boyd 2010-06-30 01:30:24

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XSLT: Transforming into non-xml content?

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