Special Edition Using XML, Second Edition

XSL As a Transformation Technology

In 1999, the authors of the XSL Working Group decided to split the Recommendation into two parts. The first part became the XSL 1.0 Recommendation, and the second part became the XSL Transformations Recommendation (XSLT).

In a sense, all stylesheets transform XML, given that you start with a plain-text document and you end up with the XML data, which can be displayed with a design and layout. This is one application of stylesheets. However, the editors of the XSL Recommendation realized the potential for the ability to transform XML from one format to another, which is the goal of XSLT.

XSLT allows you to take an XML document and transform the data in the document into another XML format, or even another language, ...