Frank Neugebauer

The eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) process allows for the changing (or transformation) of XML into other text including (different) XML, plain text, HTML, and Wireless Markup Language (WML). Understanding the basics of XSLT can serve you well as you pursue the presentation and integration of XML in your applications. This article briefly introduces these concepts and the transformation process. I'll then show how Java classes can be used directly within XSL stylesheets to provide extensive robustness during the transformation process. I'll demonstrate how XSLT and Java can be used to solve the common problem of converting XML data into fixed-width, plain text strings. This type of problem can be found when integrating with legacy systems. XSLT Basics The basic XSLT architecture is depicted in figure 1. The source of the incoming XML can be stat... (more)

Struts and XSLT - It's Not an Either/Or Decision

When developing Web applications that use Java and XML there are many options, including (among others) the Apache Struts framework and the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) language. At first blush, these options may seem like an "either/or" proposition, considering the fact that the view portion of Struts serves essentially the same purpose as XSLT: to render the view, or visual output, of the application. This article will show how XSLT can be used within the view layer of Struts to leverage the strengths of both and allow you maximum flexibility in the vis... (more)

Modularize Formatting Objects

The Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) W3C recommendation was created as a means to display XML data. The recommendation includes a transformation language (XSLT) and formatting object (or output format) language (XSL-FO), which together provide the XSL stylesheet developer with the tools necessary to present XML. The XSL-FO language is like HTML on steroids, because it allows not only cascading stylesheet (CSS)-type functionality, but also pagination and page layout, which are not available using HTML alone (at least not to as great a degree as with XSL-FO). However, such rob... (more)

XSL 101: XSL Functionality

In my last article, "Two Great Technologies, One Amazing Solution" (XML-J, Vol. 2, issue 1), I demonstrated how the Java programming language could be used within stylesheets to add robustness to XSLT. This month I'll stick strictly within the confines of the XPath and XSLT to show some of the built-in functionality available to you. The XPath and XSLT specifications include sections defining "functions." Whether they're core (required by an implementation of the spec) or external (core extensions or user defined), functions assist the stylesheet writer by providing valuable ser... (more)

XSL Formatting Objects: Here Today, Huge Tomorrow

As those of you familiar with XSL know, there are two parts to the W3C Recommendation (www.w3.org/TR/xsl): a transformation part (XSLT) and a formatting part (XSL Formatting Objects, or XSL-FO for short) with the intent being the presentation of XML. However, since XSLT is also its own (more mature) W3C Recommendation (www.w3.org/TR/xsl), it has enjoyed the attention of developers wishing to transform XML into other markup languages such as HTML. In a very real sense XSLT is how XML is currently being visually presented. Although using XSLT to transform XML to HTML can be very p... (more)