Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Transforming XML Using XSLT

The xslt task, also called the style task (the two names are interchangeable in Ant), can process a set of documents via XSLT. This is handy for building nicely formatted views of XML-based documentation in other formats like HTML, or for generating code. How do you use this task to perform XSLT transformations? Example 9-5 shows a build file that puts it to work, transforming style.xml into style.html, using style.xsl.

Example 9-5. Using the xslt/style task ch09/xslt/build.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 

<project default="main" > 

    <target name="main"> 
        <xslt basedir="." destdir="." extension=".html" includes="style.xml" 
            style="style.xsl"/>
    </target> 

</project>

Here's style.xml, the XML document to transform, which holds data about three U.S. states:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding ="UTF-8"?> <states> <state> <name>California</name> <population units="people">33871648</population><!--2000 census--> <capital>Sacramento</capital> <bird>Quail</bird> <flower>Golden Poppy</flower> <area units="square miles">155959</area> </state> <state> <name>Massachusetts</name> <population units="people">6349097</population><!--2000 census--> <capital>Boston</capital> <bird>Chickadee</bird> <flower>Mayflower</flower> <area units="square miles">7840</area> </state> <state> <name>New York</name> <population units="people">18976457</population><!--2000 census--> <capital>Albany</capital> <bird>Bluebird</bird> <flower>Rose</flower> <area units="square miles">47214</area> ...