Templates

Absolutely everything in XSLT is based on one element: the template. Templates are used to decide what elements should be output, and how. Although most applications have built-in templates, which makes it difficult to learn the basics, the Working Draft version of IE5 does not, which makes it easier for us to get a feel for what's happening. For the benefit of those using the older namespace, and because it won't hurt anything, we'll duplicate those built-in templates.

The most basic template is shown in Listing 2.7.

Listing 2.7. catalog.xsl: The Basic Template
0:<?xml version="1.0"?>
1:<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
2:
3:<xsl:template match="/">
					4:         <xsl:value-of select="."/>
					5:</xsl:template> ...

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