Server side transformation with- XSL/XML, ASP, IIS

kenneth02 · November 7th, 2003, 01:40 PM

Hi guys,

I'm having problems getting a server side xsl transformation of an xml file to work. I'm using ASP with IIS to try to spit out HTML, but I'm really stuck. I think my code is ok, but I'm wondering if I've got the right parsers etc. on my machine. I must admit to being a bit lost as to what I need and where it should go. Here are short source files I've been using to attempt the transformation:
------
ASP
------
<%@ LANGUAGE=JScript %>
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<%
var sourceFile = Server.MapPath("data.xml");
var styleFile = Server.MapPath("data.xsl");

var source = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument");
var style = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument");

source.async = false;
source.resolveExternals = false;
source.load(sourceFile);

style.async = false;
style.resolveExternals = false;
style.load(styleFile);

Response.Write(source.transformNode(style));

%>

</body>
</html>
------
XSL
------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="uri:xsl">
<xsl:template match="/">

<table>
<tr>
<td>Title</td>
<td>Author</td>
</tr>

<xsl:for-each select="CATALOG/BOOK">
<tr>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="BOOK">
<td><xsl:value-of select="TITLE"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="AUTHOR"/></td>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
------
XML
------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<CATALOG>
<BOOK>
<TITLE>Introduction to talking shy</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>John Crop</AUTHOR>
</BOOK>

<BOOK>
<TITLE>Introduction to walking</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>John Walk</AUTHOR>
</BOOK>

<BOOK>
<TITLE>Introduction to eating crisps</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>John Fug</AUTHOR>
</BOOK>

<BOOK>
<TITLE>Introduction to smelling like a dog</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>John Acs</AUTHOR>
</BOOK>

</CATALOG>
------
The output is simply the unformatted table headings: "Title Author"

I'd appreciate any tips you might have!

Thanks-
K

kenneth02 · November 8th, 2003, 06:17 AM

...And even more curious-
When I 'view source' of the resulting document, I get a table with the correct headings and a row for each line of data in the xml file, but no actual data from the xml file! Every row is blank.

Stuck.

K

pgtips · November 10th, 2003, 10:02 AM

Its just a problem with your stylesheet not matching what you expect it to match. The problem is that the line <xsl:for-each select="CATALOG/BOOK"> changes the context to each BOOK node in turn. Then you have <xsl:apply-templates/> with no select attribute so you get the default behaviour which is to apply templates to all child nodes of the context node (BOOK). The only child nodes are TITLE and AUTHOR which have no templates specified so again you get the default behaviour which is to output the text of each node. The BOOK template never gets called! So you end up with HTML like this for each BOOK:
<tr>Introduction to talking shyJohn Crop</tr>
This HTML has no <td> tags so the browser doesn't display it properly.

Try this instead:

Code:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <table>
      <tr>
        <td>Title</td>
        <td>Author</td>
      </tr>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="CATALOG/BOOK"/>
    </table>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="BOOK">
    <tr>
      <td>
        <xsl:value-of select="TITLE"/>
      </td>
      <td>
        <xsl:value-of select="AUTHOR"/>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

hth
Phil

kenneth02 · November 10th, 2003, 10:14 AM

Thanks Phil- It works.

K