XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

The xml-stylesheet Processing Instruction

The stylesheet associated with a document is indicated by an xml-stylesheet processing instruction in the document’s prolog, which comes after the XML declaration but before the root element start-tag. This processing instruction uses pseudo-attributes to describe the stylesheet (that is, they look like attributes but are not attributes because xml-stylesheet is a processing instruction and not an element).

The required href and type pseudo-attributes

There are two required pseudo-attributes for xml-stylesheet processing instructions. The value of the href pseudo-attribute gives the URL, possibly relative, where the stylesheet can be found. The type pseudo-attribute value specifies the MIME media type of the stylesheet, text/css for cascading stylesheets, application/xml for XSLT stylesheets. In Example 7-3, the xml-stylesheet processing instruction tells browsers to apply the CSS stylesheet person.css to this document before showing it to the reader.

Example 7-3. An XML document associated with a stylesheet

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="person.css" type="text/css"?>
<person>
  Alan Turing
</person>

Tip

Microsoft Internet Explorer uses type="text/xsl" for XSLT stylesheets. However, the text/xsl MIME media type has not been and will not be registered with the IANA. It is a figment of Microsoft’s imagination. In the future, application/xslt+xml will be registered to identify XSLT stylesheets specifically.

In addition to these ...