Advanced XML - The Extensible Style Language


Prerequisite:  Introduction to XML

In this class you will learn how to bring format and function to your XML-coded data using the Extensible Style Language (XSL). Using XSL, you can transform and format your data for a wide variety of destination media. You will learn to manipulate XML data using XSL style sheets and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); convert XML documents from one DTD to another, to HTML, and to other formats. You will also learn about the Document Object Model (DOM) and XML Path Language (XPath).

Topics

Lesson 1 - Getting Started with XSLT

Agenda
Objectives
XML Syntax Review
XML Trends
What is XSL?
XPath Concepts
Transforming with XSLT
XSLT Processing
What about CSS?
Conclusions about XSLT
XML Syntax Details
Well-Formed XML
The Document Type Declaration
Understanding Namespaces
Declaring Namespaces
Understanding the Document Object Model
XPath Tree Exercise

Lesson 2 - Building Basic Style Sheets

Attaching a basic style sheet
Generating HTML output
Outputting an attribute value
Outputting multiple values
Sorting multiple output values
Completing the basic style sheet
Practice 1 - Outputting the value of a single element
Practice 2 - Outputting multiple values
Practice 3 - Sorting the multiple values    

Lesson 3 - Building Advanced Style Sheets

Building a template rule
Adding multiple rules to a template
Adding automatic numbering
Adding HTML formatting
Using multiple templates
Outputting data to an HTML table
Challenge - Adding a table header row
Challenge - Adding automatic numbering to the table
Lesson 4 - Designing a Publishing Template
Examine the data file
Output data to the HTML <title> element
Output data to create the document headings
Output the <chapter_body> child elements
Link to an external CSS file