Re: [xsl] Question about xsl:apply-imports

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2009-09-10 18:27 -0700, Bill French wrote:
> xsl:import is pretty awesome, let me say that right off.

I totally agree.  Here is a paper describing the publishing system I 
designed and implemented for publishing individual US intelligence 
documents according to a common XSD using different skins for every 
intelligence gathering agency (e.g. CENTCOM, STRATCOM, US Forces 
South Korea, US Coast Guard, etc.) that heavily relies on xsl:import:

  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/links/ipepaper.htm

Note that the XSLStyle documentation methodology is very helpful in 
documenting a multi-import/include stylesheet including an 
alphabetized index of top-level named constructs and in which module 
each construct is found:

  http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/resources/#xslstyle

> But it sometimes yields surprising results.

I've found it very reliable when using Saxon.  I've found it very 
unreliable using Xalan and other XSLT processors (but of course I've 
not tried them all).

> I have a stylesheet called rendereddocument.xsl that imports a 
> number of other stylesheets using the xsl:import instructions:
>
> <xsl:import href="inc/baseline.xsl"/>
> <xsl:import href="inc/application-tabs.xsl"/>
> <xsl:import href="inc/fields.xsl"/>
> <xsl:import href="inc/search-criteria.xsl"/>
> <xsl:import href="inc/search-fields.xsl"/>
> <xsl:include href="../../override/xslt/customization.xsl"/>
>
> in fields.xsl, I have a template defined as follows:
>
> <xsl:template match="rm:document">
> ...
>
> and in rendereddocument.xsl I have two templates that are defined as follows:
>
> <xsl:template match="rm:document" priority="-0.1">
> ...
>
> <xsl:template match="rm:associated" priority="-0.1">
> ...
>         <xsl:apply-imports/>
> ...
>
> In the last template, there's an xsl:imports instruction. The 
> element on which this template is matching, rm:associated, has 
> rm:document children. It's my understanding that xsl:apply-imports 
> should elect to apply the xsl:template defined in fields.xsl, not in 
> rendereddocument.xsl.

Not quite, but very close.

> However, this isn't what's happening. Instead, the template matching 
> rm:document defined in rendereddocument.xsl is being applied.

Probably because of the way that rm:associated is being handled by 
the imported stylesheets.

<xsl:imports> *re-applies* the last-matched node using only the 
imported stylesheets ... so it is as if you wrote 
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/> with imported stylesheets, it isn't 
(as I think you've written above) an <xsl:apply-templates 
select="node()"/> or <xsl:apply-templates/> with imported stylesheets.

So, to figure out what is happening in your situation, check out how 
you are handling rm:associated in the imported stylesheets, and that 
will probably tell you how rm:document is being pushed at your stylesheet.

> Any help would be most appreciated. Let me know if you need to see 
> all the files. Last time, the issue was glaringly apparent from just 
> the first email. ;)

Hopefully you've found this just as helpful.

. . . . . . . . . . . Ken

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