Having difficulty making hyperlinks work in XML doc

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 07:29 AM

Welcome to TheScripts TSDN...

Try this code:
[html]<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<xsl:styleshe et version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:xlink="ht tp://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
exclude-result-prefixes="xlink " >

<xsl:template match="/">
<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-gb"></meta>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"></meta>
<title>Bookstor e</title>
<link rel="stylesheet " type="text/css" href="../rps.css"></link>

</head>

<body>
<xsl:for-each select="booksto re/book">
<xsl:if test="descripti on[@xlink:type = 'simple' and @xlink:href]">
<a href="{descript ion/@xlink:href}">< xsl:value-of select="descrip tion"/></a><br />
</xsl:if>

</xsl:for-each>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>[/html]

For more details see Building XLink Applications with XSLT.

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 10:17 AM

Thank you for your advice. Sadly, when I run your code, I just get a blank page. When I removed the if test, the page showed with hyperlinks, which is definite progress. Unfortunately the links just point back to the xml file, not to the URL I specified in the xlink:href attribute, viz "file:///E:/www/TryOut/book2.xml" instead of, for example, "http://www.cam.ac.uk".
Thanks
Rob

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 10:29 AM

I tested on IE7 and FireFox 2.0.
Clicking on Text2 link has open http://www.cam.ac.uk/ site.

What browser are you using?

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 11:16 AM

I copied some example code from the Building XLink Applications with XSLT document you referred me to, and at last I see something that works. Hooray! It can be done! Sadly, I'm too stupid to be able to work out how to use the working stuff in my code. I've tried reading about apply-templates, but so far I don't really "get" it.

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 11:20 AM

Regarding XSL syntax and reference see this link.
And please post any related questions.

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 11:22 AM

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.3 running on Windows XP SP2. When I hover the mouse pointer over the link the status bar shows the file:///E:..blah url I referred to above. Clicking it does nothing, since the URL is clearly just pointing back to the source xml doc for the page.

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 11:39 AM

Please post your final XSL code.
Also, try to test it on a different machine.
I'm working on W2003 and it was fine.

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 11:54 AM

I'll try this out when I get home - my home PC is marginally more up to date than this one here at work! As I said somewhere above, this version puts up hyperlinks, but they just point back to the xml source file.

If I can get this version to fly that'll be good, since the next thing I want to do is embed the whole lot in a table, which I can easily see how to do. With templates, it may well be the way forward, but so far I can't see how to do it.
Thanks

xml code

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="book2.xsl"?>

<bookstore xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink/">

<book>
  <description 
    xlink:type="simple" 
    xlink:href="../RPS/ComingUp.xml"
    xlink:show="replace">Text1
  </description>
</book>

<book>
  <description
    xlink:type="simple"
    xlink:href="http://www.cam.ac.uk"
    xlink:show="replace">Text2
  </description>
</book>

</bookstore>

xsl code

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> 
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" 
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
    xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" 
    exclude-result-prefixes="xlink" > 

<xsl:template match="/">  
<html>  
<head>  
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-gb"></meta>  
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"></meta>  
  <title>Bookstore</title>  
  
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../rps.css"></link>  
</head>  

<body>  
  <xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">  
      <a href="{description/@xlink:href}">
        <xsl:value-of select="description"/></a><br />  
  </xsl:for-each>  
</body>  
</html> 
</xsl:template> 
</xsl:stylesheet>

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 12:22 PM

Strange behavior there.

I'm curious what you get if use:
[html] <a href="{descript ion/@xlink:href}">
<xsl:value-of select="descrip tion/@xlink:href"/></a><br />
[/html]

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 12:33 PM

I changed the code as you suggest and got a completely blank page. So I stuck xxx on either side of the "value-of select" tag and got xxx xxx. I think the url being generated is a single blank space and under those circumstances there's something in the browser or xslt (or some other magic!) that substututes in the path to the xml file.

It would be good if I could find a way to see the html that's been generated, but View/Page Source just shows the original xml.

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 12:43 PM

Hmm, try to replace the "../RPS/ComingUp.xml" href in XML with an http://www.yahoo.com, just for test.
I think that if an error occured here (due to invalid path), the for-each failed to complete.

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 01:35 PM

Sorry, no joy. Actually, if it works for you but not for me then it might, as you suggested earlier, be something to do with the environment. This may not be relevant, but I noticed that if I run it in IE7 it fills in the path to the xml file directory, but not the filename itself, so when I click the link, it opens a File Open dialogue box. (yes, the spelling confirms I'm in the UK ;-)

**dorinbogdan** · Mar 27 '07, 01:41 PM

Ok, but what about the last suggestion? That is, to replace the "../RPS/ComingUp.xml" href in XML with a valid web address, i.e. "http://www.yahoo.com". Just for test.
Thanks.

**RobClack** · Mar 27 '07, 02:02 PM

One day, I promise, I'll learn to communicate unambiguously!
I replaced the reference to a local file with http://www.yahoo.com as you suggested, but it made no difference. The text inside the <a></a> tags translates to a single blank (or possibly unprintable) character, so nothing appears. If I pre- and postfix the content with, say, xxx, then the link appears, xxx xxx but just points to the xml file.

Having difficulty making hyperlinks work in XML doc

Having difficulty making hyperlinks work in XML doc

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