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Literal result element namespace differs from xsl:element namespa ce

2003-12-17 09:59:10
I'm getting a problem with namespaces, where the output document needs to
change its namespace in the middle. Saxon works OK, but libxslt behaves
differently.

Here's a highly simplified example - the intended output is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Message xmlns="http://me.envelope";>
  <Header>
    <Title>My document</Title>
    <From>someone</From>
  </Header
  <Body xmlns="http://me.content";>
    <Item>
      <Ref>1234</Ref>
      <Info desc="A widget">
        <Note>min qty 5</Note>
      </Info>
      <Quantity>10</Quantity>
    </Item>
    <!-- etc. -->
</Message>

        note the change in namespace (fictitious URIs for simplicity)

Source is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<report>
        <title>My Document</title>
        <origin>someone</origin>
        <form>
                <code>1234</code>
                <description note="min qty 5">A widget</description>
                <qty>10</qty>
        </form>
        <form>
                <code>99999</code>
                <description note="add comment">Miscellaneous</description>
                <qty>3</qty>
        </form>
</report>

And stylesheet is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
    xmlns="http://me.envelope";
    version="1.0">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
  <xsl:template match="report">
    <Message>
      <Header>
        <Title><xsl:value-of select="title"/></Title>
        <From><xsl:value-of select="origin"/></From>
      </Header>
      <Body xmlns="http://me.content";>
        <xsl:for-each select="form">
          <Item>
            <Ref><xsl:value-of select="code"/></Ref>
            <xsl:element name="Info">
              <xsl:attribute name="desc">
                <xsl:value-of select="description"/>
              </xsl:attribute>
              <Note><xsl:value-of select="description/@note"/></Note>
            </xsl:element>
            <Quantity><xsl:value-of select="qty"/></Quantity>
          </Item>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </Body>
    </Message>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

But using libxslt (in fact xsltproc) this produces:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Message xmlns="http://me.envelope";>
  <Header>
    <Title>My Document</Title>
    <From>someone</From>
  </Header>
  <Body xmlns="http://me.content";>
    <Item xmlns="http://me.envelope";>
      <Ref>1234</Ref>
      <Info xmlns="http://me.content"; desc="A widget">
        <Note xmlns="http://me.envelope";>min qty 5</Note>
      </Info>
      <Quantity>10</Quantity>
    </Item>
    <Item xmlns="http://me.envelope";>
      <Ref>99999</Ref>
      <Info xmlns="http://me.content"; desc="Miscellaneous">
        <Note xmlns="http://me.envelope";>add comment</Note>
      </Info>
      <Quantity>3</Quantity>
    </Item>
  </Body>
</Message>

        note all the xmlns attributes !

It seems to assume that literal result elements in the style sheet that are
children of Body belong to the top-level default namespace, not the
namespace declared on Body. It thus switches namespace in the output.

However, elements created by xsl:element are assumed to belong to the inner
namespace. With a mixture of both methods of creating elements, the output
contains a mass of namespace changes (all wrong).

The real application is vastly more complex than this, and I'm hoping to be
able to use xsltproc (or a custom app using libxslt) without having to
resort to major reconstruction of the stylesheet (the only way I can see to
fix it so far is to add explicit namespaces to every element in the
stylesheet :( )

It strikes me as inconsistent, but I can't find anything explicit in the
books or docs. that says how this should work. Is Saxon and MSXML wrong, or
is libxslt - or is it "undefined"?

Comments and suggestions much appreciated

TIA
Rick Jones


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