XML Pocket Reference

Name

<xsl:for-each>

Synopsis

<xsl:for-each select= pattern />

Description

The <xsl:for-each> directive allows you to select any number of identical siblings in an XML document. For example, consider the following XML document:

<book>
  <chapter>
    <title>A Mystery Unfolds</title>
    <paragraph>
    It was a dark and stormy night...
    </paragraph>
  </chapter>
  <chapter>
    <title>A Sudden Visit</title>
    <paragraph>
    Marcus found himself sleeping...
    </paragraph>
  </chapter>
</book>

Note there are two <chapter> siblings in the document. Let’s assume we want to provide an HTML numbered list for each <title> element that is the direct child of a <chapter> element, which in turn has a <book> element as a parent. The following XSL performs the task:

<xsl:template match="book>
  <ol>
  <xsl:for-each select="chapter">
    <li><xsl:process select="title"></li>
  </xsl:for-each>
  </ol>
</xsl:template>

After formatting, here is what the result looks like:

<ol>
<li>A Mystery Unfolds</li>
<li>A Sudden Visit</li>
</ol>

The XSL processor processes a <title> element in each <chapter> element that is the child of a <book> element. The result is a list of each chapter that could be used for a table of contents.