XSLT Applications

In addition to XSLT's primary purpose in the context of application integration, XSLT has a number of other applications.

Schema Conversions

The main application of XSLT, and the reason for its inclusion here, is for schema conversions as XML documents move between applications, accounting for the differences in the way applications manage data structures.

XSLT is the preferred method of converting data structured within XML. You can leverage XSLT for the following:

• Extracting data.

• Validating data.

• Persisting data.

• Converting attributes to elements.

• Converting elements to attributes.

• Changing the metadata and content of an incoming XML document to create a new outgoing XML document.

Converting XML to Something Else, and Vice Versa

In addition to converting XML document A to XML document B (typically changing its structure and content), XSLT can be a mechanism for reading most types of text files and creating XML or for reading XML and creating most types of text files.

Within the B2B world, the best examples of this are

• Reading EDI from a source application that externalizes information as EDI and converting it to XML.

• Converting XML to EDI so information is accepted in a particular target system.

• Reading other data interchange text, such as comma-delimited data, and converting it to XML.

• Converting XML to a data interchange text format, such as comma-delimited, so information is accepted into particular target systems.

• Reading and writing information to and from nondata text sources, such as PDF documents.

• Publishing information to standard text formats used by publishing systems.