Learning XSLT

Service-Oriented Architecture

Learning XSLT

XSLT is a well estabilished XML processing technology that enables one to transform one XML document into another XML document or HTML or plain text.

XSLT was originally designed to be a presentation technology but it has found it best place in server side processing. There are many such examples in the IT history, for instance, Java.

Experiences have shown that an average developer can write XSLT stylesheets much more quickly than an experienced developer coding in traditional programming languages such as C, C++ and Java. There are a few major factors contributing to the increase of productivity:

1. A declarative language tends to be easier to use in server side because it fits well with the request-and-response model.
2. XLST offers excellent data independence. According to Michael Kay, this is due to "The usual benefit cited for higher-level languages is development productivity. But in truth, the real value comes from potential for change. An XSLT application for transforming XML data structures can be made much more resilient to changes in the details of the XML documents than a procedural application coded using the low-level DOM and SAX interfaces. In the database world this feature is known as data independence, and it was the quest for data independence that led to the success of declarative languages like SQL and the demise of the older navigational data access languages. I firmly believe the same will happen in the XML world. ".
3. XPath enpowers developers with a simple and effective data access query tool. This frees developers from writing their own data access methods that are rigid and do not even offer any query capabilities.

There are many good (and free) resources on the web:

1. Good XSLT introduction
2. W3C's XSLT 1.0 specification
3. XML.com's "What is XSLT?"
4. Interactive XSLT tutorial
5. Good XSLT references

Articles from Michael Kay (the editor of XSLT 2.0 and the author of Saxon):

• What kind of language is XSLT?
• Things XSLT can't do
• Saxon: Anatomy of an XSLT processor