Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations

The Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) standard defines mechanisms for addressing XML data (XPath) and for specifying transformations on the data in order to convert it into other forms. JAXP includes an interpreting implementation of XSLT called Xalan ("ZAY-lahn").

Note: The term Xalan doesn't appear to be stand for anything. It is said to be the name of a rare musical instrument, but the only instrument that comes close is the Xalam ("zah-LAHM") -- an early precursor to the banjo.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to use Xalan. You'll write out a Document Object Model as an XML file, and you'll see how to generate a DOM from an arbitrary data file in order to convert it to XML. Finally, you'll convert XML data into a different form, unlocking the mysteries of the XPath addressing mechanism along the way.

Note: The examples in this chapter can be found in <INSTALL>/j2eetutorial14/examples/jaxp/xslt/samples/.