differences between for-each and templates in xsl?

Question

Both xsl:for-each and xsl:template are used to retrieve nodes from xml in an xsl stylesheet. But what is the fundamental difference between them? Please guide me. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

One use of for-each I haven't seen mentioned: you can use it to switch the context node to another document. I've used it to transform data XML to a HTML input form. The template that matched a data field contained a for-each that selected a single node: the xs:element in the XSD that described the data field to transform.

Using the description in the XSD one data field could be transformed to a radio button group, a drop down box, or a plain and simple text input. Without for-each I couldn't walk through the two documents at the same time.

In general, I prefer matching templates. I find that it corresponds to the notion of a single transform applied at once better than for-each-ing this node, then the next, then the one after that, etc.. But that's a personal preference, of course.