<xsl:choose>

• xsl:choose is necessary when you need an "otherwise"

the xml file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="foreach.xsl"?>
<catalog>
   <cd>
      <title>empire burlesque</title>
      <artist>bob dylan</artist>
      <country>usa</country>
      <company>columbia</company>
      <price>10.90</price>
      <year>1985</year>
   </cd>
</catalog>

<xsl:apply-templates>

xsl:apply-templates directs the processor to find the appropriate template to apply

<xsl:apply-templates  select = expression  mode = QName>

to insert a conditional choose test against the content of the file, simply add the xsl:choose, xsl:when and xsl:otherwise elements to your xsl document like this:

<xsl:choose>
   <xsl:when test=".[artist='bob dylan']">
      ... some code ...

To filter the XML file, simply add a filter to the select attribute in your for-each element in your XSL file like this:

<xsl:for-each select="CATALOG/CD[ARTIST='Bob Dylan']">

Legal filter operators are:

to put a conditional if test against the content of the file, simply add an xsl:if element to your xsl document like this:

<xsl:if match=".[artist='bob dylan']">
... some output ...
</xsl:if>

<xsl:for-each>

<xsl:for-each> is a construct that processes an entire node set inside a single rule. <xsl:for-each> sets up a new context node set and context node internally that are useful for localized effects such as building formatted lists and calling special functions. For example, The rule uses <xsl:for-each> to create a numbered list of chapter titles before processing each chapter with the <xsl:apply-templates> directive. Thus, the following generates a table of contents:

<xsl:template match="book">
     <xsl:for-each select="chapter">
       <xsl:value-of select="position()"/>
       <xsl:value-of select="title"/>
     </xsl:for-each>
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

XSLServlet Demo: Alpahbetical List of Products

Before transformation

<repairs>
<repair>...

Examples

<xsl:template match="car">
  <p>
    <xsl:value-of select="color"/>
  </p>
</xsl:template>

1. link to www3 where it's all at
2. search google for james clark's xt parser, which is an xsl_transform spec for xsl. Also, that xt package is now in my search engine, too (Dec 21 2003).
3. there is an apache module which will do xslt style transforms. It is called mod_xslt.