XSLT

Book excerpt: There's been great anticipation surrounding the release of XSLT 2.0, the new language specification that's critical for converting XML documents into other formats, such as HTML code or a PDF file. The XSLT 2.0 specification is approaching completion at long last, but unfortunately, version 2.0's delays and complexity have forced developers to rely on the XSLT 1.0 standard longer than they anticipated. Both specifications will be in use during what is likely to be a long transition period. The second edition of XSLT incorporates new material for XSLT 2.0 and expounds on the lessons learned over the last six years of XSLT 1.0 use. Whether you're looking for the latest and greatest in XSLT 1.0 techniques, or is moving on to XSLT 2.0, this new edition of XSLT will address your needs. The book includes plenty of practical, real-world examples to show you how to apply XSLT stylesheets to XML data using either version. You'll get a thorough understanding of XSLT and XPath and their relationship to other web standards, along with recommendations for a honed toolkit in an open platform-neutral, standards-based environment. Author Doug Tidwell starts with the basics: simple stylesheets and methods for setting up transformation engines. Then he works through examples that develop your understanding of the many parts of XSLT, particularly XSLT's template-based approach to transformations. This new edition has been updated to explain XSLT 2.0's many dependencies, notably XML Schema and XPath 2.0.