A very brief XSLT cookbook

Note: The children of a node refers to the text within an element as well as any nodes within it. Consider this snippet:

<LG>
    <FIRSTL>
        Let us go then, you and I,
    </FIRSTL>
    When the evening is spread out against the sky...
</LG>

The children of LG are the FIRSTL element and the text "When the evening is spread out against the sky..."

Now, some basic recipes.

• Drop FIRSTL element and its children:

<xsl:template match="FIRSTL"/>
 
 
• Keep FIRSTL and its children, drop attributes:


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

• Keep children of FIRSTL but drop the element tags:


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

• Keep FIRSTL, its attributes, and its children:


<xsl:template match="FIRSTL">
    <FIRSTL>
        <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </FIRSTL>
</xsl:template>
 
 

• Keep NAME and TYPE attributes of NOTE element; change R attribute to REND if present:


<xsl:template match="NOTE">
    <NOTE>
        <xsl:copy-of select="@NAME"/>
        <xsl:copy-of select="@TYPE"/>
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
        <xsl:if test="@R">
            <xsl:attribute name="REND">
                <xsl:value-of select="R"/>
            </xsl:attribute>
        </xsl:if>
    </NOTE>
</xsl:template>
 
 

• To match only those DEDICAT elements appearing within the POEM element, use this wrapper around your template:


<xsl:template match="DEDICAT[ancestor::POEM]">
    [transformations here]
</xsl:template>