Datatypes
XPath and XSLT define five datatypes, listed here. The result tree fragment
type is defined by XSLT and is specific to transformations; the other four are defined by XPath and are generic to any technology that uses XPath. The four XPath datatypes are tersely defined in Section 1 of the XPath specification; section 11.1 of the XSLT specification defines result tree fragments.
-
node-set
A set of nodes. The set can be empty, or it can contain any number of nodes.
-
boolean
The value
true
orfalse
. Be aware that the stringstrue
andfalse
have no special meaning or value in XPath. If you need to use the boolean values themselves, use the functionstrue()
andfalse()
.-
number
A floating-point number. All numbers in XPath and XSLT are implemented as floating-point numbers; the
integer
orint
datatype does not exist in XPath and XSLT. To be specific, all numbers are implemented as IEEE 754 floating-point numbers, the same standard used by the Javafloat
anddouble
primitive types. In addition to ordinary numbers, there are five special values for numbers: positive and negative infinity, positive and negative zero, andNaN
, the special symbol for anything that is not a number.-
string
Zero or more characters, as defined in the XML specification.
-
result tree fragment
A temporary tree. You can create one with an
<xsl:variable>
element that uses content (instead of theselect
attribute) to initialize its value. A result tree fragment can be copied to the result tree with the
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