Subject: RE: [xsl] When/How to use templates, and when to use if/choose From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:55:22 +0100 |
> Using templates sometimes seems to be more of a pain than not! Well, this first example certainly seems to read much better with templates: <xsl:template match="doc:Body//doc:Para"> <xsl:number count="doc:Para" from="doc:Body" level="any"/> <xsl:text>. </xsl:text> <xsl:call-template name="prefix"/> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="doc:appendix//doc:Para"> <font xsl:use-attribute-sets="attSetAppendixBody"> <xsl:call-template name="prefix"/> <xsl:apply-templates/> </font> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="doc:Para"> <xsl:call-template name="prefix"/> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:template> What are the benefits? Well, it's a bit shorter, and it's a bit more readable, but the main benefit is reusability of code and potential for change. An importing stylesheet can override any one of these templates without being concerned with the others, or it can add extra templates that select a different subset of the doc:Para elements. As soon as you want to create a suite of stylesheets that do a number of different jobs, or process a variety of different inputs, that becomes invaluable. > Also, > > <xsl:template match="doc:title"> > <xsl:choose> > <xsl:when test="parent::doc:Table"> > <xsl:apply-templates/> > </xsl:when> > <xsl:when test="ancestor::doc:Summary"> > <xsl:choose> > <xsl:when test="../../../../doc:Section"> This is starting to look pretty hideous; it certainly feels to me that rules of the form <xsl:template match="doc:Section//doc:Summary/doc:Table/doc:title"> are vastly preferable. But you don't have to do everything with templates: looking at the above, without knowing anything about your problem, I would probably be inclined to process most of the title elements from their containing element, for example <xsl:template match="doc:Table"> <p><xsl:value-of select="doc:title"></p> rather than having a rule for titles that worries about all the possible places they can appear. Michael Kay http://www.saxonica.com/
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