How do you add an image in XSLT?

Question

I have a simple XML document that contains image information. I need to transform it to HTML -- simple, right? However, when I use the XSL below, it blows up with the error "Cannot write an attribute node when no element start tag is open." I can't see where the open tag is -- any ideas?

XML:

<root>
    <HeaderText>
        <HeaderText>Dan Testing</HeaderText>
    </HeaderText>
    <Image>
        <img width="100" height="100" alt="FPO lady" src="/uploadedImages/temp_photo_small.jpg"/>
    </Image>
    <BodyText>
        <p>This is a test of the body text<br  /></p>
    </BodyText>
    <ShowLinkArrow>false</ShowLinkArrow>
</root>

XSL:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" extension-element-prefixes="msxsl"
    exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl js dl" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:js="urn:custom-javascript" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:dl="urn:datalist">
    <xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes" encoding="utf-8"/>
    <xsl:template match="/" xml:space="preserve">
     <img>
      <xsl:attribute name="width">
       100
      </xsl:attribute>
      <xsl:attribute name="height">
       100
      </xsl:attribute>
      <xsl:attribute name="class">
       CalloutRightPhoto
      </xsl:attribute>
      <xsl:attribute name="src">
       <xsl:copy-of select="/root/Image/node()"/>
      </xsl:attribute>
     </img>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Answer 1

Never mind -- I'm an idiot. I just needed <xsl:value-of select="/root/Image/node()"/>

Answer 2

Shouldn't that be:

<xsl:value-of select="/root/Image/img/@src"/>

? It looks like you are trying to copy the entire Image/img node to the attribute @src

Answer 3

In order to add attributes, XSL wants

<xsl:element name="img">
     (attributes)
</xsl:element>

instead of just

<img>
     (attributes)
</img>

Although, yes, if you're just copying the element as-is, you don't need any of that.

Answer 4

Just to clarify the problem here - the error is in the following bit of code:

<xsl:attribute name="src">
    <xsl:copy-of select="/root/Image/node()"/>
</xsl:attribute>

The instruction xsl:copy-of takes a node or node-set and makes a copy of it - outputting a node or node-set. However an attribute cannot contain a node, only a textual value, so xsl:value-of would be a possible solution.

A MUCH shorter solution (and perhaps more elegant) would be the following:

<img width="100" height="100" src="{/root/Image/node()}" class="CalloutRightPhoto"/>

The use of the {} in the attribute is called an Attribute Value Template, and can contain any XPATH expression.