XSLT

Name

<xsl:param> — Defines the name and value of a parameter to be used by a template. This element can appear as a top-level element or inside the <xsl:template> element. If the <xsl:param> appears as a top-level element, it is a global parameter, visible to all areas of the stylesheet. The value of the parameter can be defined in one of two ways: specified in the select attribute, or defined in an XSLT template inside the <xsl:param> element itself.

Category

Instruction

Required Attributes

name

Defines the name of this parameter.

Optional Attributes

select

Contains an XPath expression that defines the value of this parameter.

Content

If the select attribute is used, <xsl:param> should be empty. Otherwise, it contains an XSLT template.

Appears in

<xsl:stylesheet> and <xsl:template>. If an <xsl:param> appears as a child of <xsl:stylesheet>, then it is a global parameter visible throughout the stylesheet. XSLT doesn’t define the way global parameters are passed to the XSLT processor, so check the documentation for your processor to see how this is done. (See Section 4.4.3 in Chapter 4 for an overview of how to pass parameters to the most popular XSLT processors.)

Defined in

XSLT section 11, Variables and Parameters.

Example

Here is a stylesheet that defines several <xsl:param> elements, both global and local. Notice that one of the parameters is a node-set; parameters can be of any XPath or XSLT datatype:

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