XML XSL

XML and XSL Overview
by Alex Chaffee alex@jguru.com, http://www.purpletech.com/ Purple Technology: Open source development jGuru: Java online resource
FAQs and News and other cool stuff
XML
eXtensible Markup Language Replacement for HTML Metalanguage - used to create other languages Has become a universal dataexchange format
Advantages of XML
Human-readable Machine-readable (easy to parse) Standard format for data interchange Possible to validate Extensible
can represent any data can add new tags for new data formats
Hierarchical structure (nesting)
Why not HTML?

Browsers are too lenient Led to sloppy HTML code all over the Web
<imG src="foo.gif> is "legal" HTML
Told HTML, "go to your room and don't come out until it's clean"
Out came XML
XML Searching and Agents

An early motivation for XML Allows detailed queries of disparate data sources
Find best price for certain product Search for properties with different real estate brokers
HTML insufficient
Good for humans, bad for computers Doesn't scale
XML Example
<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE menu SYSTEM "menu.dtd"> <menu> <meal name="breakfast"> <food>Scrambled Eggs</food> <food>Hash Browns</food> <drink>Orange Juice</drink> </meal> </menu>
XML Languages
MML - musical scores CML - chemicals HRMML - Human Resource Management (???) MathML - equations RSS - web syndication
Tag vs. Element

A tag is a name, enclosed by angle brackets, with optional attributes
<foo id=123>
An element is a tree, containing an open tag, contents, and a close tag

<foo id=123>This is <bar>an element</bar></foo>
XML Syntax
Tags properly nested Tag names case-sensitive All tags must be closed
or self-closing <foo/> is the same as <foo></foo>
Attributes enclosed in quotes Document consists of a single (root) element A few other details
Well-Formed vs. Valid

Well-Formed:
Structure follows XML syntax rules
Valid:
Structure conforms to a DTD
DTD
Document Type Definition A grammar for XML documents Defines
which elements can contain which other elements which attributes are allowed/required/permitted on which elements
DTD and Data Exchange

Both sides must agree on DTD ahead of time DTD can be part of document or stored separately
DTD Example
<?xml encoding="US-ASCII"> <!ELEMENT menu (meal)*> <!ATTLIST menu name CDATA #OPTIONAL> <!ELEMENT meal (food|drink)*> <!ATTLIST meal
name CDATA #REQUIRED>
<!ELEMENT food (#PCDATA)*> <!ELEMENT drink (#PCDATA)*>
Why isn't a DTD in XML?

It will be someday: XSchema
XML Namespaces
A single document can use multiple DTDs But! Two DTDs can use the same element name with different rules Solution: Namespaces Must prefix tag name with namespace name
e.g. <xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
Entities
Macros / constants Values defined once, used in document
<!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "foo.dtd" [ <!ENTITY background "#99FFFF"> ]> <BODY BGCOLOR="&background;">
SML / Minimal XML

Simplified Markup Language Subset of XML, but stripped down Easier to understand, parse No
DTDs Attributes Processing instructions etc.
XSL: XML Transformation
XSL
The eXtensible Style Language Transforms XML into HTML Actually, transforms XML into a tree, then turns that tree into another tree, then outputs that tree as XML
XSL Architecture
XSL Stylesheet
XML Source
XSL Processor
HTML Output
XML is a Tree
<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE menu SYSTEM "menu.dtd"> <menu> <meal name="breakfast"> <food>Scrambled Eggs</food> <food>Hash Browns</food> <drink>Orange Juice</drink> </meal> name <meal name="snack"> <food>Chips</food> </meal> "breakfast" </menu>
menu
meal
meal
food
"Scrambled Eggs"
food
"Hash Browns"
drink
"Orange Juice"
XML Is A Tree
Nodes
Branch nodes contain children Leaf nodes contain content
Attributes, Values, Entities, etc.
DOM provides API-based access to tree models XSL turns one tree into a different tree
Command Line Invocation

Apache Xalan
java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -IN faq.xml XSL faq.xsl OUT faq.html
IBM LotusXSL
java com.lotus.xsl.xml4j.ProcessXSL -in servletfaq.xml -xsl faq.xsl -out faq.html
And so on
Formatting Objects
Forget about it for now
XSLT
The meat of XSL Syntax for making XSL template files Pattern matching Output formatting Rules-based (like Prolog)
XPath
The stuff inside the quotes in XSL patterns
"/person/name/firstname"
A sensible way to locate content in an XML document More straightforward than walking a DOM tree or waiting for a SAX callback
XPath Syntax
book/title
title child of book child of current node
/book/title
title child of book child of document root
@language
language attribute of current node
chapter/@language
language attribute of chapter child of current node
XPath Syntax (cont.)

chapter[3]/para
all the para children of the third chapter
book/*/title
all title children of all children of book (but not of their children)
chapter//para
all para children of any child of chapter, recursively
../../title
title child of parent of parent parent::node()/parent::node()/child::title
XPath Abbreviations
. .. //
@
self::node() parent::node() descendant-orself::node()

attribute::
XPath Functions
para[1] or para[position()=1]
the first para node of the current node
para[last()] para[count(child::note)>0]
all paragraphs with one or more notes
para[id("abstract")]
selects all child nodes like <para id="abstract">
para[@type='secret'] or para[attribute::type='secret']
selects all child nodes like <para type="secret">
XPath Functions (cont.)

para[not(title)]
selects all child paragraphs with no title elements
para[position() >= 2 and position() < last()]

selects all but the first and last paragraphs
para[lang("en")]
matches <para xml:lang="en-uk"></para>
note[contains(., "alex")]
. means "test childrens' content too, recursively" in this context
note[starts-with(., "hello")]
XPath Disadvantages
Not XML
Not hierarchical New syntax rules Weird mix of /,[],(),*,:,::,.,..,@
New function set

Not Java
Concepts like "axis" not always clear
XSLT Syntax
XSL Rules
XSL is a series of rules or templates Each template matches an element Templates can contain XML commands
XSL Commands: apply-templates

Main rule: apply-templates
looks for a template match applies it
Usually the template calls applytemplates recursively on its children If not, then processing stops at that node (but continues for its other siblings that matched this template)
Default Rule
For a leaf node, output its contents For a branch node, apply templates (recursively) (including default rule)
Some XSL Commands

value-of
grabs raw value, good for text elements and attributes
if
executes conditionally
number
counts position of element in group good for ordered list numbering, table of contents, etc.
XSL Example
<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [ <!ENTITY background "#99FFFF"> ]> <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/XSL/Transform/1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" result-ns="">
Example (cont.)
<xsl:template match="menu"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Menu: <xsl:value-of select="@name"/> </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="&background;"> <H1> Menu <xsl:value-of select="@name"/> </H1>
[Note: Can reuse contents, unlike CSS]
Example (cont.)
<xsl:apply-templates />
</BODY> </HTML> </xsl:template>
Example (cont.)
<xsl:template match="meal"> <H2><xsl:value-of select="@name"/></H2><br />; <UL> <xsl:apply-templates/> </UL> </xsl:template>
Example (cont.)
<xsl:template match="food"> <LI><xsl:apply-templates/></LI> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="drink"> <LI><xsl:apply-templates/></LI> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>
Outputting Attributes
From This:
<link> <name>Stinky</name> <url>http://www.stinky.com/</url> </link>
We Want This:
<A href="http://www.stinky.com/">Stinky</A>
Outputting Attributes
The Hard Way:
<xsl:element name="A"> <xsl:attribute name="href"> <xsl:value-of select="url" /> </xsl:attribute> <xsl:value-of select="name" /> </xsl:element>
The Easy Way:

<A href="{url}"> <xsl:value-of select="name"/> </A>
Copying Subtrees
<xsl:template match="*|@*|text()"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|text()"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template>
No, I don't understand it either Default copy rule strips all tags/attributes Also copy-of
XSL conditionals: if
<xsl:if test="author"> by <xsl:apply-templates select="author" /> </xsl:if> Note: no else (?!?)
XSL Conditonals: choose

Case 1
<link> <name>Stinky</name> <url>http://www.stinky.com/</url> </link> <a href="http://www.stinky.com/">Stinky</a>
Case 2
<link> <url>http://www.stinky.com/</url> </link> <a href="http://www.stinky.com/">http://www.stinky.com/</a>
Case 3
<link> <name>Stinky</name> </link> Stinky
XSL Conditionals: choose

<xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="url"> <A href="{url}"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="name"> <xsl:value-of select="name" /> </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise> <xsl:value-of select="url" /> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </A> </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise> <xsl:value-of select="name" /> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose>
XSL Looping: for-each

<xsl:for-each select="chapter"> <h2><xsl:value-of select="@title"/> </h2> </xsl:for-each> Functional overlap with applytemplates
Difference in programming style Use it inside a given template rule
Template Modes
Same element name, different context -> different template, different output Can invoke apply-templates with a mode, matches corresponding moded template
<h1>Table of Contents</h1> <ol> <xsl:apply-templates select="chapter" mode="toc"/> </ol> <xsl:template select="chapter" mode="toc"> <li><xsl:value-of select="@title"/></li> </xsl:template> <xsl:template select="chapter"> <h1><xsl:value-of select="@title"/></h1> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:template>
XSL vs. CSS

Similar problem, different solutions CSS takes HTML and applies fonts, styles, positions XSL takes any XML and turns it into anything else XSL more powerful than CSS
e.g. can use same content in multiple places in result document
XSL Disadvantages
Confusing syntax and semantics
Like Prolog+C+XML It's really a programming language, but using markup language syntax yuck!
Hard to debug
XSL Trace helps a little
Don't have full power of, say, Java inside templates

No database access, hashtables, methods, objects, etc.
Still need separate .xsl file for each client device
Other XSL-Based Products

LotusXSL Resin by Caucho Cocoon IBM XSL Trace Xalan (Apache) XT Cocoon Resin Lots more
Links: XML
XML Spec
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml
XML FAQ
http://www.ucc.ie/xml/
Caf con Leche

http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/
XML.com
http://www.xml.com/
Servlet FAQ in XSL

http://www.purpletech.com/servlet-faq/
References
McLaughlin, "Java and XML", O'Reilly Eckstein, "XML Pocket Reference", O'Reilly Harrold, "XML Bible" Bradley, "The XML Companion", Addison-Wesley
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XML and XSL Overview

Hierarchical structure (nesting)

Why not HTML?

XML Searching and Agents

Tag vs. Element

An element is a tree, containing an open tag, contents, and a close tag

Well-Formed vs. Valid

DTD and Data Exchange

<!ELEMENT food (#PCDATA)*> <!ELEMENT drink (#PCDATA)*>

Why isn't a DTD in XML?

SML / Minimal XML

XSL: XML Transformation

Command Line Invocation

XPath Syntax (cont.)

self::node() parent::node() descendant-orself::node()

XPath Functions (cont.)

para[position() >= 2 and position() < last()]

New function set

Concepts like "axis" not always clear

XSL Commands: apply-templates

Some XSL Commands

The Easy Way:

XSL Conditonals: choose

XSL Conditionals: choose

XSL Looping: for-each

XSL vs. CSS

Don't have full power of, say, Java inside templates

Still need separate .xsl file for each client device

Other XSL-Based Products

Caf con Leche

Servlet FAQ in XSL

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<!ELEMENT food (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT drink (#PCDATA)>