Solutions in this chapter:

• Reviewing XSL and XSLT

• JAXP and Underlying XSL Engines

• Using JAXP Classes

• Miscellaneous JAXP for XSL Issues

Introduction

In the previous two chapters, we discussed the parsing of XML data, as well as some simple XML manipulations. The final component of JAXP encapsulates more complicated XML manipulations. Specifically, it is designed to provide an interface to XSLT and stylesheets.

XSLT and stylesheets provide a mechanism for automating the transformation of XML from one form to another. While most frequently used to transform XML into HTML, it can also be used to transform equivalent XML data between schemas, or to output data in other browser formats (such as VoiceXML).

XSLT and stylesheets are often associated with client-side browsers, not server-side programming. However, nothing in their design limits them to client-side. There are often good reasons to perform these manipulations on the server: to support browsers that do not support XSLT, or to transform XML between schemas.

JAXP provides a very thin layer over XSL engines. The Transformation classes in JAXP aren t really designed to be general-purpose XML transformation classes, so writing your own Transformer subclass can be a bit tricky.

Reviewing XSL and XSLT

XML, as you may have noticed, requires a lot of work for it to be properly parsed through and then displayed accurately on an HTML page. Proper code needs to be written to make sure that the values display the correct color scheme, proper spacing between areas, and the correct information displayed row-by-row...