XSLT Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for XML and XSLT Developers

by Sal Mangano

Overview

Forget those funky robot toys that were all the rage in the '80s, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Transformations) is the ultimate transformer. This powerful language is expert at transforming XML documents into PDF files, HTML documents, JPEG files--virtually anything your heart desires. As useful as XSLT is, though, most people have a difficult time learning its many peculiarities. And now Version 2.0, while elegant and powerful, has only added to the confusion.

XSLT Cookbook, Second Edition wants to set the record straight. It helps you sharpen your programming skills and overall understanding of XSLT through a collection of detailed recipes. Each recipe breaks down a specific problem into manageable chunks, giving you an easy-to-grasp roadmap for integrating XSLT with your data and applications. No other XSLT book around employs this practical problem-solution-discussion format.

In addition to offering code recipes for solving everyday problems with XSLT 1.0, this new edition shows you how to leverage the improvements found in XSLT 2.0, such as how to simplify the string manipulation and date/time conversion processes. The book also covers XPath 2.0, a critical companion standard, as well as topics ranging from basic transformations to complex sorting and linking. It even explores extension functions on a variety of different XSLT processors and shows ways to combine multiple documents using XSLT. Code examples add a real-world dimension to each technique.

Whether you're just starting out in XSLT or looking for advanced techniques, you'll find the level of information you need in XSLT Cookbook, Second Edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596553302
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/14/2005
Series:	Cookbooks (O'Reilly)
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	778
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Sal Mangano has worked as a developer on Wall Street for 12 years, including work at the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley. He has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Polytechnic Universityand is currently working as an independent consultant, focused on financial applications of XML and related technologies.

Table of Contents

	Preface	9
1.	Strings	1
1.1	Testing if a String Ends with Another String	2
1.2	Finding the Position of a Substring	2
1.3	Removing Specific Characters from a String	3
1.4	Finding Substrings from the End of a String	4
1.5	Duplicating a String N Times	6
1.6	Reversing a String	9
1.7	Replacing Text	13
1.8	Converting Case	17
1.9	Tokenizing a String	19
1.10	Making Do Without Regular Expressions	22
1.11	Using the EXSLT String Extensions	23
2.	Numbers and Math	26
2.1	Formatting Numbers	27
2.2	Rounding Numbers to a Specified Precision	36
2.3	Converting from Roman Numerals to Numbers	37
2.4	Converting from One Base to Another	39
2.5	Implementing Common Math Functions	43
2.6	Computing Sums and Products	54
2.7	Finding Minimums and Maximums	58
2.8	Computing Statistical Functions	65
2.9	Computing Combinatorial Functions	68
2.10	Testing Bits	69
3.	Dates and Times	75
3.1	Calculating the Day of the Week	77
3.2	Determining the Last Day of the Month	78
3.3	Getting Names for Days and Months	79
3.4	Calculating Julian and Absolute Day Numbers from a Specified Date	82
3.5	Calculating the Week Number for a Specified Date	85
3.6	Working with the Julian Calendar	86
3.7	Working with the ISO Calendar	87
3.8	Working with the Islamic Calendar	90
3.9	Working with the Hebrew Calendar	92
3.10	Formatting Dates and Times	101
3.11	Determining Secular and Religious Holidays	106
4.	Selecting and Traversing	109
4.1	Optimizing Node Selections	111
4.2	Determining if Two Nodes Are the Same	120
4.3	Ignoring Duplicate Elements	123
4.4	Selecting All but a Specific Element	127
4.5	Performing a Preorder Traversal	128
4.6	Performing a Postorder Traversal	132
4.7	Performing an In-Order Traversal	134
4.8	Performing a Level-Order Traversal	138
4.9	Processing Nodes by Position	143
5.	XML to Text	149
5.1	Dealing with Whitespace	150
5.2	Exporting XML to Delimited Data	155
5.3	Creating a Columnar Report	170
5.4	Displaying a Hierarchy	180
5.5	Numbering Textual Output	188
5.6	Wrapping Text to a Specified Width and Alignment	197
6.	XML to XML	201
6.1	Converting Attributes to Elements	202
6.2	Converting Elements to Attributes	204
6.3	Renaming Elements or Attributes	207
6.4	Merging Documents with Identical Schema	212
6.5	Merging Documents with Unlike Schema	217
6.6	Splitting Documents	223
6.7	Flattening an XML Hierarchy	224
6.8	Deepening an XML Hierarchy	228
6.9	Reorganizing an XML Hierarchy	232
7.	Querying XML	236
7.1	Performing Set Operations on Node Sets	237
7.2	Performing Set Operations on Node Sets Using Value Semantics	240
7.3	Determining Set Equality by Value	249
7.4	Performing Structure-Preserving Queries	253
7.5	Joins	255
7.6	Implementing the W3C XML Query-Use Cases in XSLT	260
8.	XML to HTML	288
8.1	Using XSLT as a Styling Language	289
8.2	Creating Hyperlinked Documents	293
8.3	Creating HTML Tables	296
8.4	Creating Frames	303
8.5	Creating Data-Driven Stylesheets	308
8.6	Creating a Self-Contained HTML Transformation	314
8.7	Populating a Form	318
9.	XML to SVG	324
9.1	Transforming an Existing Boilerplate SVG	325
9.2	Creating Reusable SVG Generation Utilities for Graphs and Charts	332
9.3	Creating a Tree Diagram	368
9.4	Creating Interactive SVG-Enabled Web Pages	378
10.	Code Generation	388
10.1	Generating Constant Definitions	396
10.2	Generating Switching Code	400
10.3	Generating Message-Handling Stub Code	405
10.4	Generating Data Wrappers	408
10.5	Generating Pretty Printers	412
10.6	Generating a Test Data-Entry Web Client	420
10.7	Generating Test-Entry Web CGI	421
10.8	Generating Code from UML Models via XMI	426
10.9	Generating XSLT from XSLT	442
11.	Vertical XSLT Application Recipes	449
11.1	Converting Visio VDX Documents to SVG	450
11.2	Working with Excel XML Spreadsheets	463
11.3	Generating XTM Topic Maps from UML Models via XMI	470
11.4	Generating Web Sites from XTM Topic Maps	490
11.5	Serving SOAP Documentation from WSDL	504
12.	Extending and Embedding XSLT	518
12.1	Using Saxon's and Xalan's Native Extensions	525
12.2	Extending XSLT with JavaScript	537
12.3	Adding Extension Functions Using Java	543
12.4	Adding Extension Elements Using Java	549
12.5	Using XSLT from Perl	563
12.6	Using XSLT from Java	566
13.	Testing and Debugging	569
13.1	Using xsl: message Effectively	570
13.2	Tracing the Flow of Your Stylesheet Through Its Input Document	572
13.3	Automating the Insertion of Debug Output	577
13.4	Including Embedded Unit Test Data in Utility Stylesheets	584
13.5	Structuring Unit Tests	589
13.6	Testing Boundary and Error Conditions	591
14.	Generic and Functional Programming	595
14.1	Creating Polymorphic XSLT	600
14.2	Creating Generic Element Aggregation Functions	607
14.3	Creating Generic Bounded Aggregation Functions	620
14.4	Creating Generic Mapping Functions	627
14.5	Creating Generic Node-Set Generators	635
	Index	641