If you use XML and XSL, then you might have come across a time , when you have to play around with attributes and values of XML nodes in you XSL. They are loads of sites with long winded info about this, but none I found were brief and precise … This is NO XML/XSL TUTORIAL,but my attempt to put-together some sort of cheat list …

The sample XML that we will working with looks like this…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="food.xsl"?>
<food>
<fruits type="tropical">
<item name="mango" moreinfo="http://www.mango.com">Mango is the king of fruits</item>
<item name="banana" moreinfo="http://www.banana.com">Banana once a day , keeps the doctor away</item>
<item name="orange" moreinfo="http://www.orange.com">Orange is the color and rich in vitamin C</item>
<item name="Papaya" moreinfo="http://www.papaya.com">Papaya - Hot when raw, cold when ripe</item>
</fruits>
</food>

So Lets begin transforming our above XML using XSL

Example 1 : Displaying value at a chosen Attribute

<xsl:value-of select="/food/fruits/item[@name='orange']" /><br />
to get more information about <a href="{/food/fruits/item[@name='orange']/@moreinfo}" target="new" ><xsl:value-of select="/food/fruits/item[@name='orange']/@name" /> </a>

HTML result will look like

Orange is the color and rich in vitamin C,
to get more information about <a href="http://www.orange.com" target="new">

Example 2 : Looping through and displaying all XML Attribute Names and their Values

<xsl:for-each select="/food/fruits/item/@*">
attribute name : <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>, 
attribute value : <xsl:value-of select="."/>  <br />
</xsl:for-each>

HTML result will look like


attribute name : name, attribute value : mango
attribute name : moreinfo, attribute value : http://www.mango.com
attribute name : name, attribute value : banana
attribute name : moreinfo, attribute value : http://www.banana.com
attribute name : name, attribute value : orange
attribute name : moreinfo, attribute value : http://www.orange.com
attribute name : name, attribute value : Papaya
attribute name : moreinfo, attribute value : http://www.papaya.com


Watch this space, I’ll keep updating this with new findings…