Transforming XML (with HTML markup) using XSL

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April 23rd, 2008, 10:09 AM

bodge

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Location: UK

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Transforming XML (with HTML markup) using XSL

Hi all,

I am currently working on a project where I need to transform an XML document (tha contains HTML markup) to HTML using XSL. For example:

Code:

<school>
  <schoolName>MySchool</schoolName>
  <schoolUrl>http://www.google.com/</schoolUrl>
  <newsItem>
    <newsUrl>http://www.apple.com/uk</newsUrl>
    <newsTitle>New Test Item</newsTitle>
    <newsDescription><P>This is where the news description would go</P></newsDescription>
  </newsItem>
</school>

then an XSL of:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
  <xsl:template match="school">
    <h3>
      <xsl:value-of select="schoolName" />
    </h3>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="newsItem" />
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="newsItem">
    <xsl:variable name="newsUrl">
      <xsl:value-of select="newsUrl" />
    </xsl:variable>

    <li>
      <h3>
        <xsl:value-of select="newsTitle" />
      </h3>

      <div class="description">
        <xsl:value-of select="newsDescription" />
        (<a href="{$newsUrl}"><xsl:value-of select="newsUrl"/></a>)
      </div>
    </li>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The trouble being that the tags such as <P> are being encoded and output as strings rather than interpreted as HTML markup.
(a better explanation can be found on this thread but the solution doesn't seem to work for me!)

I've searched the forum and google, so far I've tried wrapping the newsDescription in a CDATA tag/section:

Code:

<newsDescription><![CDATA[<P>This is where the news description would go</P>]]></newsDescription>

Also tried changing the namespace declarations to add xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" to the XSL file:

Code:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">

and finally tried adding the attribute 'disable-output-escaping' so the xsl statement became:

Code:

      <xsl:value-of select="newsDescription" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>

All to no avail. Can anyone suggest a solution?

thanks.

P.S. Please excuse any formatting errors, I've tried to cut the problem down to the minimum required.

Last edited by bodge : April 24th, 2008 at 01:36 AM. Reason: corrected stylesheet error

April 23rd, 2008, 06:26 PM

atlantisstorm

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Join Date: Jan 2005

Posts: 600

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The xslt you've posted is invalid as it doesn't have a closing stylesheet reference, so I guess the problem you've described isn't directly related to the xml/xsl you've posted.

Please add...

Code:

</xsl:stylesheet>

... to the end of your xsl, then let us know what problem(s) you have.

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April 24th, 2008, 01:38 AM

bodge

Contributing User

Join Date: Jun 2005

Location: UK

Posts: 207

Time spent in forums: 1 Week 3 Days 19 h 37 m 12 sec
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Quote:

Originally Posted by atlantisstorm

The xslt you've posted is invalid as it doesn't have a closing stylesheet reference, so I guess the problem you've described isn't directly related to the xml/xsl you've posted.

Thanks. That was just a result of me trying to simplified version of the problem. The issue is still the same. Anyone any ideas of how to resolve it?

April 24th, 2008, 09:02 AM

jkmyoung

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Join Date: Sep 2004

Posts: 474

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Reputation Power: 52

copy-of
<xsl:copy-of select="newsDescription" />

The tags are not being encoded; they were not being output at all.

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