Wendell,
I had this same problem just today and solved it exactly the way you
described. You mention that more control over this will be possible in
XLST 2.0. I'm currently using Saxon 8.0. Was there a more elegant
method I could have used to solve this problem?
Thanks,
-Tracy
-----Original Message-----
From: Wendell Piez [mailto:wapiez(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com]
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 4:27 PM
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [xsl] How to select a document element from the input xml
file using xslt?
Alla,
I'm afraid you may have confused your friendly instructors by referring
to
a "document element". Reading your post, I infer what you mean by this
is
the DOCTYPE declaration, i.e. that thing at the top of your input file
looking like
<!DOCTYPE element SYSTEM "http://delete.dtd";>
... but this isn't an element at all, much less the "document element"
which is something else entirely (it's the element at the top level of
your
document, the one that contains everything else, that is whose end tag
appears at the end of the document).
Jumping ahead -- as you've found, you can control what your processor
writes as a DOCTYPE declaration in xsl:output -- but only up to a point.
What you *can't* do (as you found) is parameterize this control or make
it
dynamic in any way, by (for example) wrapping it in an xsl:choose. This
is
because it is not really an XSLT instruction, but only a literal value
the
processor hands to the serializer to use when it writes the output file.
More control over this will be possible in XSLT 2.0, but in the meantime
the way people handle this is by using stylesheets to write stylesheets.
The first stylesheet writes a stylesheet, which is then executed in a
subsequent pass. This is what the posts responding so far have been
getting
at: since you can't control this string directly, you do it indirectly
by
creating the entire stylesheet dynamically (!).
But I think this is overkill for you. Rather, I think you'll do better
to
handle your conditional logic outside the stylesheet altogether. Have
three
stylesheets:
templates.xsl contains all your templates.
deletedoc.xsl contains (only) the following:
<xsl:include href="templates.xsl"/>
<xsl:output method="xml" doctype-system="http://delete.dtd"/>
and updatedoc.xsl contains the same, only invoking update.dtd.
Then you need only to implement logic in the calling environment to call
deletedoc.xsl for "delete" documents, and update.xsl for "update"
documents, and you're there. (How you do this will depend, of course.)
This is the XSL-orthodox way to do it: XSLT is designed on the
assumption
that the host system knows how to delegate each type of document to its
own
proper stylesheet(s), and doesn't mandate (or include) any way to manage
that delegation itself. But by using xsl:include, you manage to share
templates (and maintenance) between what are formally two different
stylesheets. (You could also use xsl:import.)
If this isn't sufficient, please say why and we'll try to clear it up
further.
Cheers,
Wendell
At 03:10 PM 7/12/2004, you wrote:
Hi Alla,
Your implementation is read by the xslt processor and when it comes
across
<xsl:output... it doesnt know that you want it to output <xsl:output...
but instead assumes you are declaring the <xsl:output../> element. As
you
probably already know the <xsl:output element must be a direct child of
<xsl:stylesheet...> and cannot be inside of a template or anywhere
after
the first xsl:template element is declared... The way to accomplish
what
you are trying to do is to use the <xsl:element name="xsl:output"> and
then add the necessary attributes using <xsl:attribute
name="method">xml</xsl:attribute> etc...
Hope this helps!
Belkin, Alla wrote:
Hello,
I am using a stylesheet for modifications of the input xml file to the
different format of the xml file. My output file should have a
document element, the same as in the input file. How to copy a
document element? I can have input XMLs with different document
elements. I tried to do something like this, but it doesn't work:
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="count(//Delete) > 0">
<xsl:output method="xml"
doctype-system="http://delete.dtd"/>
</xsl:when >
<xsl:when test="count(//Delete) = 0">
<xsl:output method="xml"
doctype-system="http://update.dtd"/>
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>
Please, help
Thank you,
Alla Belkin
======================================================================
Wendell Piez
mailto:wapiez(_at_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285
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Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
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