XML Companion, The, Third Edition

Imports and inclusions

Multiple stylesheets may share some definitions. To avoid unnecessary repetition, common sets of rules may be placed in a separate stylesheet, and referenced from others:

Import

Sets of rules can be imported using the Import element. They must all occur before the style rules. This element may be used repeatedly, to import a number of other resources, and has an Href attribute that identifies a file to import by its URL:

<stylesheet ...>
  <import href="tables.xsl" />
  <import href="colours.xsl" />
  <template ...>...</template>

Imported rules are not considered to be as important as other rules, which can affect selection ...