Built-In Template: The Man Behind the Screen

Chapter 18 - Ten Most Confusing Things About XSLT
XSLT For Dummies
by Richard Wagner
Hungry Minds 2002

  

A built-in template rule is like the man behind the screen in the Wizard of Oz it takes action, but if you dont realize it, youll be confused about what happened and why. The XSLT processor uses built-in template rules to process any node that is not matched with a template rule you explicitly define in your stylesheet. Each node type has different built-in template rules that are applied to it:

• Element nodes have a built-in template that changes child nodes everywhere (children of both the current and root nodes) by removing their tags but preserving their content.

• Text and attribute nodes have a built-in template rule that copies their text straight into the result tree.

• Processing instructions, comments, and namespaces have a built-in template rule that strips them from the result document.

See Chapter 4 for more information on built-in templates.

    

2000-2002    Feedback