XSLT for Dummies

Glossary

attribute value template: Refers to the use of an XPath expression as the value of an attribute in a result tree. This expression is located inside a template and surrounded by curly braces ({}). For example, in the following code snippet, {saleprice} is the attribute value template:

<xsl:template match=”book”>

  <book price=”{saleprice}”

  <xsl:apply-templates/> 

</xsl:template>

axis: Part of an XPath location step, the axis specifies the relationship of the selected node to the context node. For example, parent is the axis in the following location step: parent::book. The 13 possible axes are as follows: child, descendant, parent, ancestor, following-sibling, preceding-sibling, following-sibling, following, preceding, attribute, namespace, descendant-or-self, and ancestor-or-self.

built-in template rules: Used to process any node that is not matched with an explicitly defined template rule in your stylesheet. Each of the node types has a specific built-in template rule that is applied to it.

context node: The node in the source tree that the XSLT processor is handling. For example, in a template rule, the context node is typically the node that is returned by the pattern. You can think of the context node as the selected node, except when you are using an axis value (other than self) that redirects the selection elsewhere.

current node: See context node.

document tree: See tree.

element: XSLT elements are the core building blocks of the XSLT language. ...