[xquery-talk] novice questions mailing list

Thu Dec 12 15:38:18 PST 2013

On 12/12/2013, David Lee <dlee at calldei.com> wrote:
> I think you will find this list very accommodating to basic questions.
> All of us on this list knew nothing about xpath at one point.
>
> I recommend with any question you supply sample XML and good description of
> what you are trying to accomplish along with any xpath or xquery code you
> have attempted
> and what it produced and why you belive it is the wrong result.
>

Here goes:

The objective is to learn how to select nodes in an xml file and use
xpath and xslt to select nodes of interest and display in a new file.

An xml file was created:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Edited by XMLSpy®, taken from http://www.w3schools.com-->
<?xml-stylesheet type='text/xsl" href="xstylesheetexample.xslt" ?>
<bookstore>
	<book category="COOKING">
		<title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
		<author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
		<year>2005</year>
		<price>30.00</price>
	</book>
	<book category="CHILDREN">
		<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
		<author>J K. Rowling</author>
		<year>2005</year>
		<price>29.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="WEB">
		<title lang="en">XQuery Kick Start</title>
		<author>James McGovern</author>
		<author>Per Bothner</author>
		<author>Kurt Cagle</author>
		<author>James Linn</author>
		<author>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
		<year>2003</year>
		<price>49.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="WEB">
		<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
		<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
		<year>2003</year>
		<price>39.95</price>
	</book>
</bookstore>

An xml stylesheet was created:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.1" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
	<xsl:import href="xqueryexampledata.xml"/>
	<xsl:output
		method="xml"
		doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN"
		doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd"
		encoding="utf-8"
		indent="no"
		omit-xml-declaration="yes"
		media-type="text/xml"
		standalone="yes"
		version="1.1"
		/>
	<xsl:template
		match="author">
		<html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' lang='en' xml:lang='en'>
			<head>
				<meta
					name='note' content='xhtml document created by xml transformation' />
				<title>Test output web page</title>
			</head>
			<body>
				<p>
					<xsl:apply-templates/>
				</p>
			</body>
		</html>
	</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The text editor 'jedit' is used with xml plugins xslt, xquery, xml.
The xslt transformer plugin is used to select the above xml file and
xslt file for subsequent transformation, to create an output xhtml
file.

The result of this transformation is the creation of a new xhtml file
(as stated in the stylesheet above):

		Everyday Italian
		<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>Giada De Laurentiis</p></body></html>
		2005
		30.00

		Harry Potter
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>J K. Rowling</p></body></html>
		2005
		29.99

		XQuery Kick Start
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>James McGovern</p></body></html>
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>Per Bothner</p></body></html>
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>Kurt Cagle</p></body></html>
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>James Linn</p></body></html>
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</p></body></html>
		2003
		49.99

		Learning XML
		<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
lang="en"><head><meta content="xhtml document created by xml
transformation" name="note" /><title>Test output web
page</title></head><body><p>Erik T. Ray</p></body></html>
		2003
		39.95

Clearly, there's a lot to learn in specifying the transformation correctly!

The ideal output is:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd">
	<html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' lang='en' xml:lang='en'>
		<head>
			<meta
				content="xhtml document created by xml transformation" name="note"
				/>
			<title>Test output web page</title>
		</head>
		<body>
			<p>Giada De Laurentiis</p>
			<p>J K. Rowling</p>
			<p>James McGovern</p>
			<p>Per Bothner</p>
			<p>Kurt Cagle</p>
			<p>James Linn</p>
			<p>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</p>
			<p>Erik T. Ray</p>
		</body>
	</html>