Introduction to XSLT Concepts

Deborah Aleyne Lapeyre and B. Tommie Usdin

Administrivia [slide 1]
Where We Are Not Going in This Tutorial [slide 2]
Where We Are Going Today [slide 3]
A Quick Poll (Who You Are) [slide 5]
What is XSLT [slide 7]
What XSLT Does is “Transform” [slide 9]
The Very Basics of XSLT Transforms [slide 10]
Sample XSLT Transforms
Logical Components of an XSLT Application [slide 17]
Component 1: XML Document [slide 18]
Looking at an XML Document as a Tree [slide 19]
Component 2: The XSLT Stylesheet (aka XSLT Transform) [slide 20]
An XSL Stylesheet / Transform [slide 23]
Component 3: An XSLT Engine/Processor [slide 24]
XSLT Also Built Into/Can be Hooked Into [slide 25]
Component 4: The Output File(s) [slide 27]
Watching a Stylesheet in Operation
How Input-Driven Stylesheets Work [slide 28]
Advice: What to Do and Not Do with XSLT [slide 29]
Business Uses XSLT Because XML is Everywhere [slide 30]
For the Right Kind of Problems* … [slide 31]
What’s Really Easy in XSLT [slide 32]
XSLT Easily Changes XML into Different XML [slide 33]
XSLT Handles Markup Well [slide 34]
XSLT is Not Good at Everything [slide 35]
XSLT is Weak on Manipulating Text (Strings) [slide 36]
Really Big Files [slide 39]
Making Flat Files into Hierarchies [slide 40]
Where XSLT Fits in Processing [slide 41]
How Organizations Use XSLT [slide 42]
Simple Business Transforms [slide 43]
Making HTML From Semantically Richer XML [slide 44]
Single Source and Reuse Publishing [slide 46]
Construct the Output for Publishing [slide 47]
What You Want in the Order You Want It [slide 48]
There is Not Just One Print Product [slide 49]
Some of the Text is Added by the Transform [slide 50]
Large Structures Can be Built and Inserted as Well [slide 51]
XSLT is Also Useful During Production [slide 52]
XML for Interchange and Archiving [slide 54]
XSLT as the Middle Component in XSL-FO [slide 55]
How XSL-FO Works [slide 56]
Architecture of a Full XSL System (XSLT + XSL-FO) [slide 58]
Formatting Objects Describe Page Layout [slide 59]
Applying Styles through XSL FOs [slide 60]
XSL-FO is a Great Report Writer [slide 61]
The Last Bits [slide 62]
There’s Another Part of XSLT We Haven’t Talked About XPath [slide 63]
What is XPath [slide 64]
XPath Has Two Main Uses [slide 65]
You’ve Seen XPath in match Expressions [slide 66]
XPath Can Be Very Complex [slide 67]
Another Complexity: Push-me Pull-you Stylesheets
XSLT is [slide 68]
What is a Pull Stylesheet? [slide 71]
Now Let’s Look at the Stylesheet [slide 72]
And That Produced HTML like this: [slide 73]
Why Pull Can Be a Problem [slide 74]
Heads UP: XSLT and XPath 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 [slide 76]
What Was “Wrong” with XSLT 1.0 [slide 77]
XSLT 2.0: More Power; More Programmer Responsibility [slide 78]
How to Deal with XSLT 1.0 and 2.0 (November 2005) [slide 79]
How to Make XSLT Programmers [slide 80]
XSLT is Also Really Easy But... [slide 81]
How to Learn XSLT [slide 84]
Debbie's XSLT Programming Pearls (Optional) [slide 85]
Now Let’s Look at Some Real Stylesheets [slide 86]
End Speech; Start References
For Further Information [slide 87]
XSLT Technical Reference Book [slide 88]
Useful XSLT Reference Website: Zvon [slide 89]
XSLT Concept/Syntax Books [slide 90]
XSLT Syntax+ for Programmers [slide 91]
Colophon [slide 92]