SAXONICA

Saxon Documentation
Full Contents
About Saxon
Changes in this Release
Conditions of Use
Using XSLT 2.0
Using XQuery
Handling Source Documents
XML Schema Processing
The XPath API
Standards Conformance
Extensibility
Saxon Extensions
Sample Saxon Applications
The Saxon SQL Extension
XSLT Elements
| Introduction
| xsl:analyze-string
| xsl:apply-imports
» | xsl:apply-templates
| xsl:attribute
| xsl:attribute-set
| xsl:call-template
| xsl:character-map
| xsl:choose
| xsl:comment
| xsl:copy
| xsl:copy-of
| xsl:decimal-format
| xsl:document
| xsl:element
| xsl:fallback
| xsl:for-each
| xsl:for-each-group
| xsl:function
| xsl:if
| xsl:include
| xsl:import
| xsl:import-schema
| xsl:key
| xsl:matching-substring
| xsl:message
| xsl:namespace
| xsl:namespace-alias
| xsl:next-match
| xsl:non-matching-substring
| xsl:number
| xsl:otherwise
| xsl:output
| xsl:output-character
| xsl:param
| xsl:perform-sort
| xsl:preserve-space
| xsl:processing-instruction
| xsl:result-document
| xsl:sequence
| xsl:sort
| xsl:strip-space
| xsl:stylesheet
| xsl:template
| xsl:text
| xsl:value-of
| xsl:variable
| xsl:when
| xsl:with-param
| Literal Result Elements
XPath 2.0 Expression Syntax
Function Library
XSLT Patterns

# xsl:apply-templates

The `xsl:apply-templates` element causes navigation from the current element, usually but not necessarily to process its children. Each selected node is processed using the best-match `xsl:template` defined for that node.

The `xsl:apply-templates` element takes an optional attribute, `mode`, which identifies the processing mode. If this attribute is present, only templates with a matching `mode` parameter will be considered when searching for the rule to apply to the selected elements.

It also takes an optional attribute, `select`.

If the `select` attribute is omitted, apply-templates causes all the immediate children of the current node to be processed: that is, child elements and character content, in the order in which it appears. Character content must be processed by a template whose match pattern will be something like `*/text()`. Child elements similarly are processed using the appropriate template, selected according to the rules given below under xsl:template.

If the `select` attribute is included, the result must be a sequence of nodes. All nodes selected by the expression are processed.

The `xsl:apply-templates` element is usually empty, in which case the selected nodes are processed in the order they are selected (this will usually be document order, but this depends on the `select` expression that is used). However the element may include `xsl:sort` and/or `xsl:param` elements:

- For sorted processing, one or more child xsl:sort elements may be included. These define the sort order to be applied to the selection. The sort keys are listed in major-to-minor order.

- To supply parameters to the called template, one or more xsl:with-param elements may be included. The values of these parameters are available to the called template. If the `xsl:with-param` element specifies `tunnel="yes"`, then the parameter is passed transparently through to templates called at any depth, but it can only be referenced by an `xsl:param` element that also specifies `tunnel="yes"`. If the default value, `tunnel="no"` is used, then the parameter value is available only in the immediately called template, and only if the `xsl:param` element specifies `tunnel="no"` (explicitly or by defaulting the attribute).

The selected nodes are processed in a particular context. This context includes:

- A current node: the node being processed

- A current node list: the list of nodes being processed, in the order they are processed (this affects the value of the position() and last() functions)

- A set of variables, which initially is those variable defined as parameters

Some examples of the most useful forms of select expression are listed below:

Expression | Meaning
XXX | Process all immediate child elements with tag XXX
* | Process all immediate child elements (but not character data within the element)
../TITLE | Process the TITLE children of the parent element
XXX[@AAA] | Process all XXX child elements having an attribute named AAA
@* | Process all attributes of the current element
*/ZZZ | Process all grandchild ZZZ elements
XXX[ZZZ] | Process all child XXX elements that have a child ZZZ
XXX[@WIDTH and not(@width="20")] | Process all child XXX elements that have a WIDTH attribute whose value is not "20"
AUTHOR[1] | Process the first child AUTHOR element
APPENDIX[@NUMBER][last()] | Process the last child APPENDIX element having a NUMBER attribute
APPENDIX[last()][@NUMBER] | Process the last child APPENDIX element provided it has a NUMBER attribute

The full syntax of select expressions is outlined in XPath Expression Syntax.

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