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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a>

<UL CLASS="ChildLinks">
<LI><A href="node11.html#SECTION0011100000000000000000">10.1 Introduction</a>
<LI><A href="node11.html#SECTION0011200000000000000000">10.2 Prerequisite</a>
<LI><A href="node11.html#SECTION0011300000000000000000">10.3 Using the XML/XSL package from CherryPy</a>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION0011000000000000000000">
10. How to use XML/XSL with CherryPy</A>
</H1>

<P>

<H1><A NAME="SECTION0011100000000000000000">
10.1 Introduction</A>
</H1>
With CherryPy, you can use python standard datatypes (lists, dictionaries, ...) to store your data, and then you can use
masks (written in CHTL) to convert that data into HTML.

<P>
However, this can also be done with XML and XSL. I personally think that using python types directly, and then writing
CHTL masks is much easier and straightforward than XML/XSL, but there might be several reasons why you'd want to use XML/XSL:

<UL>
<LI>You're getting your data from some other application and that data comes in XML (which is likely to
happen, since XML/XSL is now a standard).
</LI>
<LI>Your website is a multi-million contract with a big company, and they want to hear words like "XML" or "XSL", because
it makes them feel safe ...
</LI>
<LI>Your boss will let you use CherryPy, but only if you use XML/XSL, because it makes him feel safe ...
</LI>
</UL>

<P>

<H1><A NAME="SECTION0011200000000000000000">
10.2 Prerequisite</A>
</H1>
This HowTo uses the 4Suite module developed by Fourthought, Inc. I tested it with version 0.12.0a1 of 4Suite and version
2.1 of python, but other combinations would also probably work.

<P>
Also, several other XML/XSL modules are available for Python, and using them is also probably very easy.

<P>
Start by downloading 4Suite from <a class="url" href="http://4suite.org">http://4suite.org</a> and installing it on your machine.

<P>
You can test your installation by firing up the Python interpreter and typing:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
&gt;&gt;&gt; from Ft.Xml.Xslt.Processor import Processor
::: Using pDomlette
&gt;&gt;&gt;
</pre></div>
If this doesn't work for you, then 4Suite is not correctly installed on your system.

<P>

<H1><A NAME="SECTION0011300000000000000000">
10.3 Using the XML/XSL package from CherryPy</A>
</H1>

<P>
Once you have 4Suite installed, is is very easy to use it from CherryPy. You can use regular masks to write your XSL
stylesheets, and you have several ways to generate your XML (using a function, a view or even a mask).

<P>
The following example is a simple example that demonstrates a basic XML/XSL transformation:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
from Ft.Xml.Xslt.Processor import Processor

CherryClass XslTransform:
function:
    def transform(self, xslStylesheet, xmlInput):
        processor = Processor()
        processor.appendStylesheetString(xslStylesheet)
        return processor.runString(xmlInput, 0, {})

CherryClass Root:
view:
    def index(self):
        return xslTransform.transform(self.xslStylesheet(), self.xmlInput())
mask:
    def xslStylesheet(self):
        &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?&gt;

        &lt;xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
            xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"&gt;

        &lt;xsl:template match="/"&gt;
            &lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;
                &lt;h2&gt;My CD Collection&lt;/h2&gt;
                &lt;table border="1"&gt;
                    &lt;tr bgcolor="#9acd32"&gt;
                        &lt;th align="left"&gt;Title&lt;/th&gt;
                        &lt;th align="left"&gt;Artist&lt;/th&gt;
                    &lt;/tr&gt;
                    &lt;xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd"&gt;
                        &lt;tr&gt;
                            &lt;td&gt;&lt;xsl:value-of select="title"/&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
                            &lt;td&gt;&lt;xsl:value-of select="artist"/&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
                        &lt;/tr&gt;
                    &lt;/xsl:for-each&gt;
                &lt;/table&gt;
            &lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;
        &lt;/xsl:template&gt;

        &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt; 
    def xmlInput(self):
        &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?&gt;
        &lt;catalog&gt;
            &lt;cd&gt;
                &lt;title&gt;Empire Burlesque&lt;/title&gt;
                &lt;artist&gt;Bob Dylan&lt;/artist&gt;
            &lt;/cd&gt;
            &lt;cd&gt;
                &lt;title&gt;Hide your heart&lt;/title&gt;
                &lt;artist&gt;Bonnie Tyler&lt;/artist&gt;
            &lt;/cd&gt;
        &lt;/catalog&gt;
</pre></div>

<P>
How does it work ?

<UL>
<LI><var>xslStylesheet</var> is a mask containing the XSL stylesheet
</LI>
<LI><var>xmlInput</var> is a mask containing the XML input. In real life, this XML would probably be generated from a function,
based on data coming from a database or some other ressource.
</LI>
<LI>The <var>index</var> view just says to apply this XSL stylesheet to that XML input.
</LI>
<LI>The <var>XslTransform</var> CherryClass is just used to implement the <var>transform</var> function, to avoid having to repeat
these 3 lines of code for each transformation.
</LI>
</UL>

<P>
Here is the HTML document generated in this example:
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
    &lt;h2&gt;My CD Collection&lt;/h2&gt;
    &lt;table border='1'&gt;
      &lt;tr bgcolor='#9acd32'&gt;
        &lt;th align='left'&gt;Title&lt;/th&gt;
        &lt;th align='left'&gt;Artist&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;Empire Burlesque&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;Bob Dylan&lt;/td&gt;
      &lt;/tr&gt;
      &lt;tr&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;Hide your heart&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;Bonnie Tyler&lt;/td&gt;
      &lt;/tr&gt;
    &lt;/table&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
</pre></div>

<P>
PS: Note that it seems that the 4Suite API has changed again in the latest releases, so you might have to tweak the above code if you're using a recent release.

<P>

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<span class="release-info">Release 0.10, documentation updated on 19 March 2004.</span>
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