XSLT

Name

<xsl:include> — Allows you to include another XSLT stylesheet. This element allows you to put common transformations in a separate stylesheet, then include the templates from that stylesheet at any time. Unlike <xsl:import>, all templates included with <xsl:include> have the same priority as those in the including stylesheet. Another difference is that <xsl:include> can appear anywhere in a stylesheet, while <xsl:import> must appear at the beginning.

Category

Top-level element

Required Attributes

href

Defines the URI of the included stylesheet.

Optional Attributes

None.

Content

None. <xsl:include> is an empty element.

Appears in

<xsl:include> is a top-level element and can appear only as a child of <xsl:stylesheet>.

Defined in

XSLT section 2.6.1, Stylesheet Inclusion.

Example

The <xsl:include> element is a good way to break your stylesheets into smaller pieces. (Those smaller pieces are often easier to reuse.) In our case study (see Chapter 9), we had a number of different stylesheets, each of which contained templates for a particular purpose. Here’s how our <xsl:include> elements look:

<xsl:include href="toot-o-matic-variables.xsl"/>

<xsl:include href="xslt-utilities.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="dw-style.xsl"/>

<xsl:include href="build-main-index.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="build-section-indexes.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="build-individual-panels.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="build-graphics.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="build-pdf-file.xsl"/>
<xsl:include href="build-zip-file.xsl"/>

Segmenting your stylesheets ...