The <xsl:for-each> Element
Contents
The <xsl:for-each> element allows you to do looping in XSLT.
The XSL <xsl:for-each> element can be used to select every XML element of a specified node-set:
Example
<?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>
<table border="1">
<tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
<th>Title</th>
<th>Artist</th>
</tr>
<xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd">
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="artist"/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Note: The value of the select attribute is an XPath expression. An XPath expression works like navigating a file system; where a forward slash (/) selects subdirectories.
Filtering the Output
We can also filter the output from the XML file by adding a criterion to the select attribute in the <xsl:for-each> element.
<xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd[artist='Bob Dylan']">
Legal filter operators are:
•= (equal)
•!= (not equal)
•< less than
•> greater than
Take a look at the adjusted XSL style sheet:
Example
<?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>
<table border="1">
<tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
<th>Title</th>
<th>Artist</th>
</tr>
<xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd[artist='Bob Dylan']">
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="artist"/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Try it yourself
Click here to try it yourself (copy and paste the XSL in the XSL pane)
Note
If there are no results shown in the bottom pane when you click the previous link, add the URL to the compatibility list as explained in Prerequisites.