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<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE s1 SYSTEM "../../style/dtd/document.dtd">
<!--
* Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
-->
<!-- $Id: overview.xml 338218 2005-07-19 17:38:45Z mcnamara $ -->
<s1 title="&xslt4j; Overview">
<ul>
<li><link anchor="intro">Introduction</link></li>
<li><link anchor="features">&xslt4j; Features</link></li>
<li><link anchor="towork">Getting to work with &xslt4j;</link></li>
<li><link anchor="uptospeed">Getting up to speed with XSLT</link></li>
<li><link anchor="glossary">Glossary</link></li>
</ul>
<anchor name="intro"/>
<s2 title="Introduction">
<p>&xslt4j; fully implements <resource-ref idref="xslt"/>
and the <resource-ref idref="xpath"/>. XSLT is the first part of the XSL stylesheet language for
XML. It includes the XSL Transformation vocabulary and XPath, a language for addressing parts of
XML documents. For links to background materials, discussion groups, frequently asked questions,
and tutorials on XSLT, see <link anchor="uptospeed">Getting up to speed with XSLT</link>.</p>
<note>XSL also includes a vocabulary for formatting documents, which is not part of &xslt4j;.
For more information, see <resource-ref idref="xsl"/> and the <jump
href="http://xml.apache.org/fop">Apache XML FOP (Formatting Objects Project)</jump>.</note>
<p>XSL stylesheets are written in the XSLT language. An XSL stylesheet contains instructions
for transforming XML documents into XML, HTML, XHTML or plain text. In structural terms, an XSL
stylesheet specifies the transformation of one tree of
nodes (the XML input) into another tree of nodes (the output or transformation result).</p>
<note>The XSL stylesheet may generate and refer to cascading style sheets (<jump
href="http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/">CSS</jump>) as part of its output.</note>
<p>In the following example, the foo.xsl stylesheet is used to transform foo.xml into foo.out:</p>
<p>foo.xml:</p>
<source><?xml version="1.0"?>
<doc>Hello</doc></source>
<p>foo.xsl:</p>
<source><?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:template match="doc">
<out><xsl:value-of select="."/></out>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet></source>
<p>foo.out:</p>
<source><out>Hello</out></source>
<p>By default, &xslt4j; uses &xml4j;, but it may be configured with system properties to work with
other XML parsers (see <link idref="usagepatterns" anchor="plug">Plugging in a Transformer and
XML parser</link>). The input may be submitted in the form of a stream of XML markup (from a URI,
a character or byte stream, or another transformation), a SAX InputStream, or a DOM Node.</p>
<p>&xslt4j; performs the transformations specified in the XSL stylesheet and packages a sequence of
SAX events that may be serialized to an output stream or writer, used to build a DOM tree, or
forwarded as input to another transformation.</p>
</s2>
<anchor name="features"/>
<s2 title="&xslt4j; Features">
<ul>
<li>Includes an Interpretive processor for use in a tooling and debugging environment and
a Compiling processor (XSLTC) for use in a high performance runtime environment.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Implements the relevant W3C specifications: <resource-ref idref="xslt"/> and
<resource-ref idref="xpath"/>.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Implements <resource-ref idref="jaxp13-longname-withacronym"/>, and builds on
<resource-ref idref="sax2"/> and <resource-ref idref="dom3"/>.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Implements the XPath API in <resource-ref idref="jaxp13"/>.<br/><br/></li>
<li>May be configured to work with any XML parser, such as
<jump href="http://xml.apache.org/xerces-j/index.html">&xml4j;</jump>, that implements
<resource-ref idref="jaxp13"/> (see <link idref="usagepatterns" anchor="plug">Plugging in an XML
parser</link>).<br/><br/></li>
<li>Can process Stream, SAX or DOM input, and output to a Stream, SAX or DOM.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Transformations may be chained (the output of one transformation may be the input for
another).<br/><br/></li>
<li>May be run from the <link idref="commandline">command line</link> for convenient file-to-file
transformations.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Includes an <link idref="usagepatterns" anchor="applet">applet wrapper</link>.<br/><br/></li>
<li>May be used in a <link idref="samples" anchor="servlet">servlet</link> to transform XML documents
into HTML and serve the results to clients.<br/><br/></li>
<li>Supports the creation of <link idref="extensions">Java and scripting language extensions</link>.
and provides a growing library of extension elements and functions.</li>
</ul>
</s2>
<anchor name="towork"/>
<s2 title="Getting to work with &xslt4j;">
<p>For instructions and some suggestions about how to get started using the XSLT Interpretive
processor, see <link idref="getstarted">Getting Started with Interpretive Processing</link>.</p>
<p>For instructions and some suggestions about how to get started using the XSLT Compiling
processor, see <link idref="xsltc_usage">Getting Started with XSLTC</link>.</p>
</s2>
<anchor name="uptospeed"/>
<s2 title="Getting up to speed with XSLT">
<p>If you are still working through the details of the XSLT spec (the W3C 1.0 Recommendation), you
may want to consult one or more of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>XSLT - XSL Transformations in
<jump href="http://www.brics.dk/~amoeller/XML/">
The XML Revolution: Technologies for the future Web</jump> by Anders Møller and Michael
I. Schwartzbach (Web pages, but designed for sequential reading)<br/><br/></li>
<li>Crane Softwright's <jump href="http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/training/">Free preview of
Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath</jump><br/><br/></li>
<li>Doug Tidwell's <jump href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xslt/">XSLT</jump>, O'Reilly, 2001
<br/><br/></li>
<li>Bob Ducharme's <jump href="http://www.manning.com/ducharme/index.html">XSLT Quickly</jump>,
Manning Publications, 2001<br/><br/></li>
<li>John Robert Gardner and Zarella Rendon's
<jump href="http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0130404462,00.html">XSLT
and XPath: A Guide to Transformations</jump>, Prentice-Hall, 2001<br/><br/></li>
<li>Michael Kay's <jump href="http://www.wrox.com/books/0764543814.shtml">XSLT
Programmer's Reference</jump>, 2nd ed., Wrox Press, 2001<br/><br/></li>
<!--
<li>Neil Bradley's <jump href="http://www.awlonline.com/product/0,2627,0201674874,00.html">XSL
Companion</jump>, Addison-Wesley, 2000<br/><br/></li>
<li>Khun Yee Fung's <jump href="http://www.awlonline.com/product/0,2627,0201711036,00.html">XSLT:
Working with XML and HTML</jump>, Addison-Wesley, 2001<br/><br/></li> -->
<li>Dave Pawson's <resource-ref idref="dpawsonxslfaq"/> to search out particular answers and
techniques<br/><br/></li>
<li>Miloslav Nic's <jump href="http://zvon.vscht.cz/HTMLonly/XSLTutorial/Books/Book1/index.html">XSL
Tutorial</jump>, a collection of stylesheet examples<br/><br/></li>
<li>Elliotte Rusty Harold's <jump href="http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/chapters/ch17.html">
Chapter 17 of the XML Bible: XSL Transformations</jump><br/><br/></li>
<li>The Mulberry <jump href="http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/">XSL-List -- Open Forum on
XSL</jump> (of interest to XSL users at all levels)<br/><br/></li>
<li>Objects by Design's <jump href="http://www.objectsbydesign.com/projects/xmi_to_html.html">
Transforming XMI to HTML</jump> (oriented towards XMI, "an XML-based, stream representation
of a UML model," but also covers "generic" XML transformations) and their related
<jump href="http://objectsbydesign.com/projects/xslt/xslt_by_example.html">XSLT by Example</jump>
<br/><br/></li>
<li>OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards):
<jump href="http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xsl.html">Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)</jump>
by Robin Cover<br/><br/></li>
</ul>
<p>When you come across other useful introductory or background materials, please email
<human-resource-ref idref="xalandev"/>, so we can add them to this list.</p>
</s2><anchor name="glossary"/>
<s2 title="Glossary">
<gloss>
<label>XSLT Namespace</label>
<item>The <jump href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/">XML namespace</jump> for XSLT. An XML
namespace is a collection of element and attribute names, identified by a Unique Resource
Identifier (URI), which often takes the form of a URL, but is really just a unique string,
not a pointer to a web page. The XSLT namespace URI is http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform.
In each XSLT stylesheet, you must declare this namespace in the stylesheet element tag and
bind it to a local prefix. Like the XSLT specification, we always use xsl as the XSLT
namespace prefix in our descriptions and examples, although you are free to bind any prefix
to this namespace.<br/><br/></item>
<label>XSL Instruction</label>
<item>Any tag associated with the XSLT namespace.<br/><br/></item>
<label>Template</label>
<item>An element, usually with child elements, that specifies a "rule" or set of
instructions to perform when a particular kind of node is encountered in the source
tree.<br/><br/></item>
<label>XSL Template Instruction</label>
<item>Any tag that occurs inside an xsl:template element and is associated with the XSLT
namespace.<br/><br/></item>
<label>Source Tree</label>
<item>The XML tree input to the XSL process.<br/><br/></item>
<label>Result Tree</label>
<item>The tree that is output by the XSL process.<br/><br/></item>
<label>Match Pattern</label>
<item>The part of a template that defines the kind(s) of nodes to which the template
applies.<br/><br/></item>
</gloss>
<p>For more definitions of XSLT terminology, see Dave Pawson's
<jump href="http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/xslvocab.html">XSLT Terminology
Clarification</jump> and the Glossary in Michael Kay's
<jump href="http://www.wrox.com/books/0764543814.shtml">XSLT Programmer's Reference</jump>.</p>
</s2>
</s1>
|
