XSLT, 2nd Edition

Name

<xsl:apply-templates>

Instructs the XSLT processor to apply the appropriate templates to a node-set or sequence.

Category

Instruction.

Required Attributes

None.

Optional Attributes

select

Contains an XPath expression that selects the nodes to which templates should be applied. Valid values include * to select all the element children of the current node. Without this attribute, <xsl:apply-templates> selects all of the children of the current node, including text, processing instructions, and comments. The instructions <xsl:apply-templates /> and <xsl:apply-templates select="node()"/> are equivalent.

mode

Defines a processing mode, which is a convenient syntax that lets you write specific templates for specific purposes. For example, you could write an <xsl:template> with mode="toc" to process a node for the table of contents of a document, and write other <xsl:template>s with mode="print", mode="online", mode="index", etc. to process the same information for different purposes.

[2.0] In XSLT 2.0, there are two special values for the mode attribute when used with the <xsl:apply-templates> element:

#default

Matches the default mode

#current

Matches the current mode

Content

The <xsl:apply-templates> element can contain any number of <xsl:sort> and <xsl:with-param> elements. In many cases, <xsl:apply-templates> is an empty element.

Appears in

<xsl:apply-templates> appears inside a template.

Defined in

[1.0] XSLT section 5.4, “Applying Template Rules.”

[2.0] XSLT section 6.3, “Applying Template Rules.” ...