The <xsl:apply-templates> Element

Build 1501 on 14/Nov/2017  This topic last edited on: 28/Sep/2016, at 10:45

The <xsl:apply-templates> element applies a template to the current element or to the current element's child nodes.

If we add a select attribute to the <xsl:apply-templates> element it will process only the child element that matches the value of the attribute. We can use the select attribute to specify the order in which the child nodes are processed.

Look at the following XSL style sheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 
<xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
  <body>
  <h2>My CD Collection</h2>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </body>
  </html>
</xsl:template>
 
<xsl:template match="cd">
  <p>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="title"/>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="artist"/>
  </p>
</xsl:template>
 
<xsl:template match="title">
  Title: <span style="color:#ff0000">
  <xsl:value-of select="."/></span>
  <br />
</xsl:template>
 
<xsl:template match="artist">
  Artist: <span style="color:#00ff00">
  <xsl:value-of select="."/></span>
  <br />
</xsl:template>
 
</xsl:stylesheet>

The results is similar to what we get by using the for-each. The main difference is that the for-each condition can be applied only to a repetitive pattern while the template can be applied to any structure

For more references see http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_w3celementref.asp.