XSLT <xsl:apply-templates> Element

XSLT Elements

Definition and Usage

The <xsl:apply-templates> element can apply templates to the current element or its child elements.

If we add a select attribute to the <xsl:apply-templates> element, it will only process the child elements that match the value of the attribute. We can use the select attribute to specify the order of processing sub-fragments.

Syntax

<xsl:apply-templates select="expression" mode="name">
  <!-- Content:(xsl:sort|xsl:with-param)* -->
</xsl:apply-templates>

Attribute

Attribute Value Description
select Expression Optional. Specifies the node to be processed. An asterisk selects the entire node set. If this attribute is omitted, all child nodes of the current node will be selected.
mode Name Optional. If multiple processing methods are defined for the same element, mode can be used to distinguish them.

Instance

Example 1

Enclose each title element using the h1 element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="title">
  <h1><xsl:apply-templates/></h1>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Example 2

Enclose the title elements of all child elements belonging to message using the h1 element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="message">
  <h1><xsl:apply-templates select="title"/></h1>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Example 3

Enclose all child nodes of the message element with mode attribute set to "big" using the h1 element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="message">
  <h1><xsl:apply-templates select="*" mode="big"/></h1>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

XSLT Elements