alexandrev-tibco
53e90ef86e
Full coverage of XSLT 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 elements and XPath functions: - 59 XSLT elements (xsl:stylesheet → xsl:use-accumulators) - 170 XPath functions (1.0 node/string/numeric/boolean, 2.0 sequence/ date/QName/string, 3.0 HOF/map/array/JSON/streaming) Each page: description, parameters table, return value, 2 runnable Saxon examples with input XML + stylesheet + output, notes, cross-links. xsltCompletions.js: all 229 entries now have blogSlug for hover links. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
4.8 KiB
title, description, date, version, versionLabel, category, syntax, tags
| title | description | date | version | versionLabel | category | syntax | tags | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| xsl:apply-templates | Selects a set of nodes and applies the best-matching template rule to each one, enabling recursive tree processing. | 2026-04-18T00:00:00Z | 1.0 | XSLT 1.0 | element | <xsl:apply-templates select="node-set" mode="mode"/> |
|
Description
xsl:apply-templates is the instruction that drives pattern-matching in XSLT. It selects a set of nodes (defaulting to all child nodes of the current node) and, for each selected node in turn, finds and instantiates the best-matching xsl:template rule. This is what makes XSLT processing recursive and tree-oriented.
Unlike xsl:for-each, which forces a fixed sequence of instructions, xsl:apply-templates delegates logic to templates declared elsewhere in the stylesheet (or imported stylesheets). This separation of concerns is the idiomatic XSLT approach: the calling template does not need to know how individual nodes are transformed.
The optional mode attribute restricts which template rules are candidates. Only templates with a matching mode value will fire. This allows the same source nodes to be processed differently in different phases of the transformation — for instance, building a table of contents in one mode and body content in another.
Child xsl:sort elements placed immediately inside xsl:apply-templates control the order in which selected nodes are processed without modifying the source tree.
Attributes
| Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
select |
XPath expression | No | Nodes to process. Defaults to all child nodes (node()). |
mode |
QName | No | Restricts matching to templates with this mode. |
Examples
Basic recursive processing
Input XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<menu>
<section name="Starters">
<item>Soup</item>
<item>Salad</item>
</section>
<section name="Mains">
<item>Steak</item>
<item>Pasta</item>
</section>
</menu>
Stylesheet:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/menu">
<menu>
<xsl:apply-templates select="section"/>
</menu>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="section">
<group title="{@name}">
<xsl:apply-templates select="item"/>
</group>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="item">
<dish><xsl:value-of select="."/></dish>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output:
<menu>
<group title="Starters">
<dish>Soup</dish>
<dish>Salad</dish>
</group>
<group title="Mains">
<dish>Steak</dish>
<dish>Pasta</dish>
</group>
</menu>
Using mode to process nodes twice
Input XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<chapters>
<chapter><title>Introduction</title></chapter>
<chapter><title>Core Concepts</title></chapter>
</chapters>
Stylesheet:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/chapters">
<book>
<toc>
<xsl:apply-templates select="chapter" mode="toc"/>
</toc>
<body>
<xsl:apply-templates select="chapter" mode="body"/>
</body>
</book>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="chapter" mode="toc">
<entry><xsl:value-of select="title"/></entry>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="chapter" mode="body">
<section><h1><xsl:value-of select="title"/></h1></section>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output:
<book>
<toc>
<entry>Introduction</entry>
<entry>Core Concepts</entry>
</toc>
<body>
<section><h1>Introduction</h1></section>
<section><h1>Core Concepts</h1></section>
</body>
</book>
Notes
- If no
selectis given,xsl:apply-templatesprocesses all child nodes of the current node in document order, including text nodes. This can produce unexpected whitespace output; explicitly selectselect="*"to limit to element children only. - When a selected node matches no template rule, the built-in default template fires: for element nodes it recursively applies templates to children; for text nodes it copies the text value.
xsl:sortchildren must appear before anyxsl:with-paramchildren.- Parameters can be passed to templates via child
xsl:with-paramelements; the receiving template must declare correspondingxsl:paramelements to access them.