The XSLT spec says (both 1.0 and 2.0) that
xsl:stylesheet and xsl:transform are 100% identical.
Everything that applies to xsl:stylesheet is exactly
identical to that applies to xsl:transform .. What is
the reason for keeping two syntaxes for the same
purpose? Is there some technical reason for this, or
there is some other reason?
I don't know the details of how this decision was originally made, but you
can be reasonably sure that when a committee decides to allow two different
ways of saying the same thing, it's because they spent a long time arguing
about it and it was getting late in the day and no-one wanted to give way
and there were other more important things on the agenda.
Clearly the difference reflects a difference of view about the primary
purpose of XSLT, whether it is primarily a transformation language or
primarily a stylesheet language.
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
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