XSLT Stylesheet Structure
The general order for elements in an XSL stylesheet is as follows:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:import/> <xsl:include/> <xsl:strip-space/> <xsl:preserve-space/> <xsl:output/> <xsl:key/> <xsl:decimal-format/> <xsl:namespace-alias/> <xsl:attribute-set>...</xsl:attribute-set> <xsl:variable>...</xsl:variable> <xsl:param>...</xsl:param> <xsl:template match="..."> ... </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="..."> ... </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>
Essentially, this ordering boils down to a few simple rules. First,
all XSL stylesheets must be well-formed XML documents, and
each XSL
element must use the namespace specified by the
xmlns
declaration in the
stylesheet
element (commonly
xsl:
). Second, all XSL stylesheets must begin
with the XSL root element tag, xsl:stylesheet
,
and close with the corresponding tag,
/xsl:stylesheet
. Within the opening tag, the
XSL namespace must be defined:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
After the root element, you can import external stylesheets
with xsl:import
elements, which must always be
first within the xsl:stylesheet
element. Any
other elements can then be used in any order and in multiple
occurrences if needed.
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