XSLT Part 5: Parameters, Variables and Conditional Branching

As described in the May 2003 issue of CPU - Computer Power User magazine. This article builds on the examples described in the April 2003 issue. These examples are found here (http://www.iangraham.org/writing/cpu-articles/apr03/)

Examples

A) Downloadable ZIP File

• There are lots of little examples here -- why not download the whole lot as a ZIP file -- may03.zip -- and install them on your own machine?

B) The Raw Data

• demo.xml -- The simple example XML data document used in the article -- this contains the raw data that is transformed into HTML. A plain text version is available at demo.txt. This is slightly different from the demo file used in the april '03 article, but the structure is the same.
• demo-withPI.xml -- This is basically the same as demo.xml, but with an xml-stylesheet PI at the beginning of the document referencng a style sheet named transform.xsl . Note that you will need to edit this document (and change the name of the stylesheet) to test out the examples included here. Modern browsers (IE 6 / Mozilla 1+/Netscape 7+) are able to take this XML data, apply the transform to it, and display the generated HTML. A plain text version of this document is available at demo-withPI.txt.

C) The XSLT Stylesheets

• transform-gt-1900.xsl -- The example XSLT that strips from output all physicists born before 1900. A plain text version is available at transform-gt-1900.txt.
• transform-alt1.xsl -- The example XSLT, described in the article, that outputs the HTML rows with alternating white and gray background colors. A plain text version is available at transform-alt1.txt.
• transform-alt2.xsl -- A modified version of the previous stylesheet, with row color selection moved to the main template from the row-generating template. A plain text version is available at transform-alt2.txt.
• transform-byThree.xsl -- A modified version of the transform-alt1.xsl stylesheet to use three alternating colors, as oppposed to two. A plain text version is available at transform-byThree.txt.

Tutorials, Books, References, and Tools

• See the Web site from last November's article, and also from last February 2003 (at the bottom of the page!)