I'm terribly confused, but I've got a simple toy example...

Input File:

<foo xmlns="http://foo/bar" name="A"/>

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns="http://foo/bar"
                version="1.1">
    <xsl:output method="text"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
    </xsl:template>

    <!--
    <xsl:template match="*[name() = 'foo']">
        <xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
    </xsl:template>
    -->

    <xsl:template match="foo">
        <xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

My expected output is "A". I get that output when I use the template that's commented out here, but not when I match against "foo", as this example does.

Can someone explain what's going on here? What am I missing?

Thanks,
Rich

Look what's going on:

1) When you want to match the element "foo" by using name() function, the XSLT processor tries to find an element in the source XML document whose element type literally equals to "foo" (by the way this approach is not safe and must be avoided when possible, since there are issues concerned with namespaces, but not directly concerned the issue you've arisen here). So, the processor sees an element whose element type is "foo" and outputs "A".
2) When you want to match the element by , the XSLT processor tries to find an element having element type "foo" which is in so called "null" namespace(that is which isn't in any namespace). Since the "foo" element is in the namespace identified by the URI "http://foo/bar", no match is found.

-----
I think the default namespace declaration in your stylesheet confused you. It has no connection with the source XML doc at all and doesn't influence any pattern in template matchings.

There are 2 solutions:

1. you can remove the default namespace declaration in the source XML(also in the stylesheet since it has nothing to do there) or change it to xmlns="", which are equivalent, and you'll get the output you want.
2.
a) change the namespace declaration in the source XML doc as following:
b) change the namespace declaration in the stylesheet:
[code]
 xmlns:bar="http://foo/bar"
[code]
c) change the "match" attribute value: "bar:foo"


Regards,
Armen

Rich you are not alone in your confusion. The W3C has acknowledged this problem and, hopefully, will sort it out in XSLT v2, as this extract from the W3C requirement shows:
rgds
Phil

Thanks. I get what's going on now. It seems an odd choice on the w3c's part to say that unqualified element references should take on the null namespace, rather than the default namespace. It makes it impossible for me to generate an output file with a default namespace for all the elements.

I tried using the {http://foo/bar}myelement syntax, to no avail.

Also, I've been playing around with all kinds of namespace tricks, like:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:bar="http://foo/bar"
                xmlns="http://foo/bar"
                exclude-result-prefixes="bar"
                version="1.1">
    <xsl:namespace-alias stylesheet-prefix="bar" result-prefix="#default"/>

... and I'm able to generate elements that use the default namespace in the output file, but I still get little xmlns:bar="http://foo/bar" turds left in various places in the output file. Correct XML, strictly speaking, but not particularly pretty.

I guess I'll just have to deal with it until XSLT 2.0.

Thanks,
Rich

You can show the elements the way you want, you just need to be careful how you construct them. Can you show a small example of your source?

--

Joe

Rich,

Thanks for the tips on <xsl:namespace-alias/> Worked well for me and saved me a long night...

Hopefully the W3C will get this together on v2.

William Walseth


They say I'm lazy, but it takes all my time.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Joe Walsh