XML can do a very cool trick.

If you include the name of an XSL file in the XML file, you can produce what looks just like a formatted HTML file when you load the XML file into a browser.

The question I have is this. How would you actually produce an actual HTML file that can be sent as a formated email by using this XML and XSL combo?

Let me put it another way.

First of all, consider this. Email has the capacity to send HTML formated text.

Second of all, consider this. XML along with a stated XSL style sheet can be loaded into a browser to produce an HTML document (right?).

So can the same be said for an email message? If email is sophisticated to send and html file properly formatted and presented as if it was being viewed in a browser, can it also to the same with an xml file?

I imagine not. I would imagine that it could not pull off this trick. I imagine that the first order of business would be to use the xml and xsl files to produce the html file and then use that generated html file as the email.

So what code or tools can be used to produce this html file?

Well a quick test should find out whether an email client supports XML with an added xsl-stylesheet processing instruction. The trouble is you have to test dozens to know if it was reliable.
I'd go with the second option. Transform the XML using your favourite XSLT processor, Saxon, .NET etc. and send the resulting HTML as the email.

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Joe
http://joe.fawcett.name/

Here is a follow-up question.
Let's look at the issue backwards going the other direction. Does there exist a tool or a 3rd party program that can take an HTML file and split it up into an XML and XSL file that will effectively display the same thing in a browser than the original HTML file?
Once I have decided how I want the HTML file to look, is there some sort of tool that will split an HTML document into an XML and XSL file that will display in a browser the same way as the HTML will?
I imagine that it might be a built-in feature for dreamweaver or some other web authoring tool. It shoule be, I think.
We masters must want to do this sort of thing from time to time.

>Let's look at the issue backwards going the other direction. Does there exist a tool or a 3rd party program that can take an HTML file and split it up into an XML and XSL file that will effectively display the same thing in a browser than the original HTML file?

That's a bit like asking whether you can take the number 4 and split into two numbers i and j such that i+j=4. Well yes you can: the trivial solutions are 4+0 or 0+4. And similarly, you could either put all the HTML in the XML document and have an identity stylesheet; or you could have an empty XML document and put all the data in the stylesheet. If you want an "intelligent" split then you would have to know which part of the HTML is fixed and which is variable; that would only start to become possible if you were looking at a collection of HTML pages that had some parts in common and some differences. (That might be a nice tool to have....)

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