XSLT, 2nd Edition

Name

<xsl:import>

Allows you to import the templates found in another XSLT stylesheet. Unlike <xsl:include>, all templates imported with <xsl:import> have a lower priority than those in the including stylesheet. Another difference between <xsl:include> and <xsl:import> is that <xsl:include> can appear anywhere in a stylesheet, whereas <xsl:import> can appear only at the beginning.

Category

Top-level element.

Required Attribute

href

Defines the URI of the imported stylesheet.

Optional Attributes

None.

Content

None. <xsl:import> is an empty element.

Appears in

<xsl:import> is a top-level element and can appear only as a child of <xsl:stylesheet>.

Defined in

[1.0] XSLT section 2.6.2, “Stylesheet Import.”

[2.0] XSLT section 3.10.3, “Stylesheet Import.”

Example

Here is a simple stylesheet that we’ll import:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- listitem.xsl -->
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="list/title"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="list/listitem"/>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="title">
    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    <xsl:text>: </xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="listitem">
    <xsl:text>HERE IS LISTITEM NUMBER </xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
    <xsl:text>:  </xsl:text>
    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

To illustrate how <xsl:import> ...