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Re: XSL/XSLT?


ABHAY Andre wrote:
> I would like to know the differences between XSL and XSLT?
> I suppose it's not the same thing. What are the main features of XSLT?

Depending on what you read:

  XSL = XSL-FO and XSLT
  XSL = XSL-FO only
  XSL = XSLT only
  XSL = Microsoft's implementation of a Dec 1998 working draft of "XSL"
         before XSL was split into XSL-FO and XSLT (this is what you get
         in the MSXML.DLL when you install IE 5.0 / IE 5.5)

XSL-FO is an XML vocabulary for page layout description. (FO stands for
formatting objects). It is not a programming language to the degree that
XSLT is. It is just a way of describing the relationships between visual
objects on a 2-dimensional page. It is based on CSS. [XSL-FO experts 
please pardon any sweeping generalities I may be making here]

XSLT is an XML vocabulary and processing model for tree transformation
(in particular, trees that correspond to XML documents). It is a
declarative, functional programming language written in XML syntax.

XSLT is often used to translate XML documents from one schema to another.

XSLT is often used to produce HTML, XHTML, or WML from XML.

XSLT is often used to produce XSL-FO from XML. The XSL-FO document is
then fed to another application to generate PDF.

In my opinion, the W3C made a mistake by not deprecating the use of
"XSL". If you only ever say XSLT or XSL-FO, it is much easier. :)

   - Mike
____________________________________________________________________
Mike J. Brown, software engineer at            My XML/XSL resources: 
webb.net in Denver, Colorado, USA              http://skew.org/xml/


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


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