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RE: Difference between XSL and XSLT

2006-02-13 03:43:51
Wndell and Michael,

Thanks a lot for your explanations.  It will come very handy for today.
:)

Kind Regards,
Houman


-----Original Message-----
From: Wendell Piez [mailto:wapiez(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com] 
Sent: 10 February 2006 19:58
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [xsl] Difference between XSL and XSLT

Houman:

XSL specifies two things:

[1] XSLT -- a language one uses to specify a conversion from one 
(XML) format to another
[2] XSL Formatting Objects -- a set of objects, represented in an XML 
format, used to specify the presentation of information, on screen or 
in print, in a platform- and application-independent way.

This is a bit complicated to understand because although both of 
these together constitute "XSL", either piece can be used 
independently of the other.

So a classic XSL application is one that uses XSLT to create an FO 
instance, typically by transforming a document in some other XML 
format into the FO format. Subsequently, this instance is handed to 
another piece of software, an "XSL Formatter", which creates a final 
output format such as PDF. Since XSL Formatters are typically bundled 
with XSLT transformation engines, the result is that one can go 
end-to-end from your XML input to your PDF or other formatted output 
without noticing the step in between.

However, you could create your FO by some other method and get your 
formatted document that way. This is fairly rare (mainly because XSLT 
is so good at the job), but not hard to do.

Alternatively (and this is where things get confusing) you could use 
XSLT to create something besides XSL-FO. This is quite common. Common 
"target" formats for XSLT besides FO include HTML, plain text, SVG, 
WML, what have you. Indeed, such uses of XSLT are even more common 
than "full XSL", and since they're also usually simpler, this is the 
way most developers first get into the technology. Many developers 
may never use FO at all.

So your answer is that one would use XSLT for transformations of one 
XML format into another (or into a related format such as HTML); 
moreover, if your final output is intended to be a format that is 
well supported by FO -- the best ready example is PDF, but there are 
others -- then might want to go beyond simply XSLT and use all of XSL.

I hope that helps,
Wendell

At 02:45 PM 2/10/2006, you wrote:
I am having a presentation on Monday about XML, XSLT and XSD.  I am
wondering what if they ask me what the difference between XSLT and XSL
is, or why we should use the one over the other...I didn't know how to
respond.

I know XSLT is a subset o XSL.  But still a bit confusing to explain
why
to use XSLT rather than XSL or vice versa...

Any comment?
Thanks
Houman

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Wendell Piez                            
mailto:wapiez(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
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