I am transforming a mixed html and xml document using an xslt stylesheet and extracting only the html elements.
Source file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<html >
<head>
<title>Simplified Example Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<TLA:document xmlns:TLA="http://www.TLA.com">
<TLA:contexts>
<TLA:context id="id_1" value=""></TLA:context>
</TLA:contexts>
<table id="table_logo" style="display:inline">
<tr>
<td height="20" align="middle">Big Title Goes Here</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center">
<img src="logo.jpg" border="0"></img>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<TLA:page>
<TLA:question id="q_id_1">
<table id="table_id_1">
<tr>
<td>Label text goes here</td>
<td>
<input id="input_id_1" type="text"></input>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</TLA:question>
</TLA:page>
<!-- Repeat many times -->
</TLA:document>
</body>
</html>
Stylesheet:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:TLA="http://www.TLA.com" exclude-result-prefixes="TLA">
<xsl:output method="html" indent="yes" version="4.0" />
<xsl:strip-space elements="*" />
<xsl:template match="@*|node()" priority="-2">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<!-- This element-only identity template prevents the
TLA namespace declaration from being copied to the output -->
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:element name="{name()}">
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()" />
</xsl:element>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Pass processing on to child elements of TLA elements -->
<xsl:template match="TLA:*">
<xsl:apply-templates select="*" />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Output:
<html>
<head>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Simplified Example Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<table id="table_logo" style="display:inline">
<tr>
<td height="20" align="middle">Big Title Goes Here</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center"><img src="logo.jpg" border="0"></td>
</tr>
</table>
<table id="table_id_1">
<tr>
<td>Label text goes here</td>
<td><input id="input_id_1" type="text"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
However there's a problem in that the meta, img, and input elements are not being closed correctly. I've set the xsl:output to html and the version to 4.0 so as far as I know they should output correct html.
I'm guessing that there needs to be a subtle change in the first xsl:template/xsl:copy instruction but my xslt skills are highly limited.
What change needs to be made to get the tags to close correctly?
P.S. I'm not sure if there's a difference between different tools/parsers but I'm using Visual Studio 2012 to debug the stylesheet so that I can see the immediate effect of any changes.
I am afraid you don't understand the syntax rules for SGML based HTML which HTML 4 or 4.01 is: the correct markup for an empty element is
<input>
, it is not<input></input>
nor<input/>
nor<input />
.So with your request of the HTML output method and version you get the correct HTML syntax when the result tree of your XSLT transformation is serialized.
Check for instance http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.arcor.de%2Fmartin.honnen%2Fxslt%2Ftest2013040901Result.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0, there are no errors or warnings on elements not being closed properly in there.
However with http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.arcor.de%2Fmartin.honnen%2Fxslt%2Ftest2013040902Result.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 you get warnings that elements are incorrectly closed.
So the
html
output method does the right thing, see also http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#section-HTML-Output-Method which says:The
<meta>
,<img>
and<input>
elements don't need to be closed — it's still valid HTML.If you want to have them closed, you could use
xml
(with XSLT2.0 you could usexhtml
, too, as far as I know) as the output method and add the<meta>
tag yourself if you need it. For example:Stylesheet
Output