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  • Action!
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    Geert Josten and
    Egon Willighagen

    last modified on December 17th 1999.


    XSA doc: xslt-parser.xsa.

    XML::XSLT Homepage

    XSLT

    You wrote some XML, and have a XSL Template. You want to use this on your website, but want to use Perl with your webserver. No Problem!

      Remember that this project is Work in Progress! Rome wasn't build in one day! Any comment is welcome! Any programming effort as well! This modules *is* great stuff, but it isn't finished yet!

      Egon

    XML::XSLT will convert the XML doc on basis of the template. It is written in Perl and works. Not all xsl commands are implemented yet. Nor is it fast. But meanwhile it works: watch it in action. At this moment we need a lot of input. So try this script and give us your comment on it. Missing/needed xsl elements, bugs, anything...

    This document gives some explanation on this project. Other Stuff to read is the Specification of XSLT and the XSL(T)-by-example page (see links). Below, given is a list of XSLT-command's that are supported.

    Supported XSLT commands

    <xsl:when test="elem='value'"> <xsl:when test="path/[@attr='value']"> <xsl:when test="path/[elem='value']"> <xsl:when test="path/elem"> <xsl:when test="path/@attr">
    command supported comment
    xsl:stylesheet limited Just has to be present
    xsl:template limited attributes match and name are supported to some extend
    xsl:sub-template depricated! this used to implement nesting of template instead of the use of apply-templates
    xsl:apply-templates limited attribute select is supported as far as xsl:value-of supports path selections
    xsl:call-template yes takes attribute name which selects xsl:template by name
    xsl:include yes takes attribute href, which can be relative-local absolute-local as well as an URL (preceded by identifier http:)
    xsl:value-of limited attribute selection, element values. Examples:
    <xsl:value-of select="."/> <xsl:value-of select="/root-elem"/> <xsl:value-of select="elem"/> <xsl:value-of select="//elem"/> <xsl:value-of select="elem[n]"/> <xsl:value-of select="//elem[n]"/> <xsl:value-of select="@attr"/> and combinations of these;
    xsl:for-each no is it needed?
    xsl:choose limited tests sequentially all xsl:whens until one succeeds or until an xsl:otherwise is found.
    xsl:when limited Example:
    <xsl:when test="@attr='value'">
    xsl:otherwise yes  
    xsl:output no will be added if anyone needs it
    xsl:processing-instruction yes  

    Action!

    Oke, let's see it work. The script takes a project name <project>. The files <project>.xml and <project>.xsl are read and converted to an internal object tree with XML::DOM. Then the XSL template is parsed against the XML tree, which results in a new doc that is redirected to STDOUT. That's all.

    Ofcourse, it need not be HTML. With XSLT you can convert any XML document with any XSL doc you like.

    NB! These are the updated examples. They only work with version 0.13 or higher.

    This is the CML project:

    • This project makes old CML files of the Dictionary on Organic Chemistry conform the newest CML DTD.
    • 91-22-5.cml (old cml file)
    • cml2cml.xsl (for cml to cml conversion)
    • resulting 91-22-5.xml
    • Please note that is you use IE 5.0 to view the result you it gets parsed by the IE XSL parser for a XML2HTML conversion due to the xsl stylesheet below. If so, use right mouse button and view source to see the underlying xml file when viewing the xml file with the stylesheet.
    • cml.xsl
    • The rest of the new CML files are served at the Dictionary on Organic Chemistry project as Physical Properties (example) and at xmltree.com.

    The Agenda project:

    Script options

    The script can be used as an CGI script, but also as a command-line utility. Also accepts a XSL Template other than <project>.xsl. These behaviours are selected with some options. Run xslt-parser without options or parameters at the commandline to view its syntax.

    the -n option
    When a script is to be used with a web-server, its output must be preceeded with a Content-type line. The xslt-parser script does this by default. It can be turned off with the -n(oweb) option.

    the -s option
    By default the script uses the <project>.xsl XSLT template. With the -s(tylesheet) <template.xsl> option other templates can be used.

    Download

    Download version 0.15 of the script here. It requires the modules XML::Parser (version 2.23 or higher) and XML::DOM (version 1.25 or higher) which can be obtained from CPAN. A changelog is available.

    The first release can be downloaded here. Other releases can be downloaded from changelog.

    Bugs

    • xsl:template matches only /fullpath/elem, /fullpath/@attr, elem, @attr, * and @*
    • xsl:value-of selects only any sequence of elem and elem[n] seperated and/or preceded by a slash '/' and/or followed by @attr

    What's Next?

    To do:

    • debugging ofcourse
    • implementation of advanced template matches (better pattern matches and support of | [or])
    • implementation of advanced value selections
    • implementation of xsl:copy-of
    • and at the end full support of XSL-T

    Links

    XSL-T

    Other