XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference
Chapter One
XSLT in Context
This chapter is designed to put XSLT in context. It's about the purpose of XSLT and the task it was
designed to perform. It's about what kind of language it is, how it came to be that way, and how it
has changed in version 2.0; and it's about how XSLT fits in with all the other technologies that you
are likely to use in a typical Web-based application. I won't be saying very much in this chapter
about what an XSLT stylesheet actually looks like or how it works: that will come later, in
Chapters 2 and 3.
The chapter starts by describing the task that XSLT is designed to perform-transformation-and
why there is the need to transform XML documents. I'll then present a trivial example of a
transformation in order to explain what this means in practice.
Next, I cover the different ways of using XSLT within the overall architecture of an application, in
which there will inevitably be many other technologies and components, each playing their own
part. We then discuss the relationship of XSLT to other standards in the growing XML family, to put
its function into context and explain how it complements the other standards.
I'll describe wha ... read full excerpt from XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference ebook
