Although XSLT style sheets can be used in conjunction with CSS to perform basic XML document formatting, the real power of XSLT is revealed when you actually manipulate the content of a document in order to facilitate a more meaningful presentation. Fortunately, XSLT includes rich features for carrying out a variety of different transformation tasks. Some of the XSLT features that make it so flexible are patterns and expressions, along with the ability to use them to process and sort nodes. Of course, at the core of every XSLT style sheet is a set of templates that are used to transform different parts of XML documents. This hour taught you a great deal about templates and how they are created and applied in XSLT style sheets. You also learned how to process and sort nodes, not to mention how to use patterns and expressions. The hour culminated in a couple of complete XSLT example style sheets, which hopefully gave you some practical knowledge that can help you get started on your own XSLT projects. |