Omitting the XML Declaration and Generating XML Fragments

Many people new to XSLT find themselves frustrated by the XML declaration that always seems to appear at the tops of their result documents, especially if they dont realize that the default output method is XML. Of course, theres a way of getting rid of the XML declaration, and its useful if youre creating well- formed XML fragments that are not necessarily complete documents. You just have to set the omit-xml-declaration attribute of the <xsl:output> element to yes: <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/> .

In the following example, I just strip the XML declaration from a document, copying everything else. Note that the XML declaration is not a node, so theres no danger of it matching the copying template:

 <?xml version="1.0"?>  <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">  <xsl:output method="xml" omit--xml-declaration="yes"/>    <xsl:template match="@*node()">      <xsl:copy>        <xsl:apply-templates select="@*node()"/>      </xsl:copy>    </xsl:template>  </xsl:stylesheet>

This stylesheet converts planets.xml:

 <?xml version="1.0"?>  <PLANETS>      <PLANET>          <NAME>Mercury</NAME>          <MASS UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.0553</MASS>          <DAY UNITS="days">58.65</DAY>          <RADIUS UNITS="miles">1516</RADIUS>          <DENSITY UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.983</DENSITY>          <DISTANCE UNITS="million miles">43.4</DISTANCE><!--At perihelion-->      </PLANET>      <PLANET>          <NAME>Venus</NAME>          <MASS UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.815</MASS>          <DAY UNITS="days">116.75</DAY>          <RADIUS UNITS="miles">3716</RADIUS>          <DENSITY UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.943</DENSITY>          <DISTANCE UNITS="million miles">66.8</DISTANCE><!--At perihelion-->      </PLANET>          .          .          .

to this new version, without the XML declaration:

 <PLANETS>      <PLANET>          <NAME>Mercury</NAME>          <MASS UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.0553</MASS>          <DAY UNITS="days">58.65</DAY>          <RADIUS UNITS="miles">1516</RADIUS>          <DENSITY UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.983</DENSITY>          <DISTANCE UNITS="million miles">43.4</DISTANCE><!--At perihelion-->      </PLANET>      <PLANET>          <NAME>Venus</NAME>          <MASS UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.815</MASS>          <DAY UNITS="days">116.75</DAY>          <RADIUS UNITS="miles">3716</RADIUS>          <DENSITY UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.943</DENSITY>          <DISTANCE UNITS="million miles">66.8</DISTANCE><!--At perihelion-->      </PLANET>          .          .          .

This is useful to know when youre generating XML fragments or doing other custom work. Note, however, that all complete XML documents, even custom ones written in various XML applications such as WML, require an XML declaration at the beginning.