using multiple stylesheets with 1 xml file

[Steve (archive)]

I'm new to XML, so pardon the stupid question.

I've looked thru several books with not luck. All I want to do is associate one xml file with multiple xsl stylesheets. For example, if the user clicks on Button A, I want to use xsl stylesheeet A to display the xml data in a browser. If he clicks button B, then I want to use stylesheet B. I would think that this would be a very common thing to do, but maybe i'm missing something big.

Is there an easy way to do this? Do I have to use (learn) Javascript or something? does someone have an example?

your input is appreciated!

 

[Andy Dingley]

All I want to do is
associate one xml file with multiple xsl stylesheets.

This is easy. Getting it to do something useful is harder !

You can "associate" multiple stylesheets by using multiple PI's (the <?xml-stylesheet ... alternate="yes" ?> business) http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/

Small problem with this is that you can indicate the default with alternate="no" (or omitting it) but there's no mechanism to indicate precedence or other bindings for alternates. The "media" attribute might be adequate for you.

A larger problem is that this association does not _cause_ the stylesheet to be processed. That's the task of the stylesheet processor, which is an application-dependent task that's outside the scope of the W3C standards.

If you're on your own web server, then it's pretty easy. parse the PI's at the top, invoke the processor accordingly. Write your own rules for selecting which one to choose, and just invoke the processor accordingly.

On the client-side browser, then IE (and some others) now process XML according to a default stylesheet (but watch out for a "default" choice that's merely the first in the list, ignoring the alternate attribute).

If you want alternates to be processed usefully on the client, then you're into writing some JavaScript. You may find a "data island" approach useful here, loading the page as static HTML with embedded XML, then processing it and writing it into a <div>, rather than processing the whole XML document into a single output page (which can then be hard to retrieve the other PI's)

 

[Steve (archive)]

thanks - that was extremely helpful..i'm surprise that something this "basic" is so difficult!

 

[fips152]

I'm new to XML, so pardon the stupid question.

I've looked thru several books with not luck. All I want to do is associate one xml file with multiple xsl stylesheets. For example, if the user clicks on Button A, I want to use xsl stylesheeet A to display the xml data in a browser. If he clicks button B, then I want to use stylesheet B. I would think that this would be a very common thing to do, but maybe i'm missing something big.

Is there an easy way to do this? Do I have to use (learn) Javascript or something? does someone have an example?

your input is appreciated!

Using some very simple CGI to change one line of
text, "http://www.csszengarden.com/" is a nice demo of changing the CSS style sheeet.

 

[Baldo]

Is there an easy way to do this? Do I have to use (learn) Javascript or something? does someone have an example?

u can use a TOMCAT + jsp + passing variable throught link

quite easy to say, but very hard to do!