Learning XSLT

Glossary

Abbreviated syntax

See “Location path.”

Absolute location path

See “Location path.”

Ancestor

See “Parent-child relationship.”

Ancestor axis

See “Axes.”

Ancestor-of-self axis

See “Axis.”

Ant

Ant is a Java-based build tool sponsored by Apache (see http://ant.apache.org). Ant is a timesaver and easy to use. See http://ant.apache.org/resources.html for a list of FAQs, articles, presentations, and books on Ant. Ant was used in this book to build the JAXP-based processor discussed in Chapter 17.

Attribute

A name/value pair that modifies an element. In the attribute specification <name type="first">, type is the attribute and first (in double quotes) is the value of the attribute. Attributes can appear on start-tags or on empty element tags. Each attribute can only appear once on a tag (no duplicates), and the order of attributes is not preserved in XML processing. An attribute value must be surrounded by matching single or double quotes. See “Node.”

Attribute axis

See “Axes.”

Attribute-list declaration

In a DTD, a declaration for a valid attribute comes in the form <!ATTLIST date type CDATA #IMPLIED>, where date is the element name for which the attribute is declared, type is the name of the attribute, CDATA is the type of the attribute (a string), and #IMPLIED means that the attribute is optional; it may also be #REQUIRED or #FIXED (a fixed attribute must always have its default value). In XML 1.0, there are several types available for valid attributes such as CDATA, ID, IDREF, IDREFS, and so ...