Default Namespace

Geierwally · July 9th, 2007, 09:41 AM

Hi!

I have a problem with the default namespace in XSLT 1.0.

I have a XSLT stylesheet which generates an XML-File. The namespace of the result XML-File depends on an element of the input XML-File.

So for example:
Input XML:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<version>2005</version>

XSLT:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<xsl:element name="manifest">

Then if the version equals to 2005, the default namespace should be set to "http://a" otherwise to "http://b".
Further an attribute of the element should be generated, so:

Code:

    <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$version='2005'">

            <xsl:attribute name="xmlns:adlcp" namespace="{$xmlns}">http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p3</xsl:attribute>
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>

            <xsl:attribute name="xmlns:adlcp" namespace="{$xmlns}">http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p2</xsl:attribute>
        </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>

So how can i set the default namespace? Can i set it dynamically in XSLT 1.0? If not, does anybody know another solution?

Thanks!
Geierwally

mhkay · July 9th, 2007, 09:53 AM

You can't set the default namespace programmatically, but you can set the namespace in which new elements are placed at the point where you create the element:

<xsl:element name="newElement" namespace="{$targetNS}">

You can't use xsl:attribute to create namespace declarations - namespaces are not attributes in the XPath data model. It's very unusual to need to create namespace nodes "by hand" - usually you just need to put all your elements and attributes in the right namespace when you create them, and the namespace declarations will look after themselves.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

Geierwally · July 9th, 2007, 11:08 AM

Thanks! :)

So if i set a namespace for the first element, this will be set to the default namespace (xmlns) of the output file.

But why can't i use xsl:attribute to create namespace declarations?

This code would create the namspace prefix "haha"... : Or did you mean something else?
<xsl:attribute name="haha:test" namespace="{$haha}"></xsl:attribute>

Geierwally