XML to HTML page

**Dormilich** · Nov 17 '08, 07:55 PM

how do you want your html to look like? if you can answer that it should be easy to bend the xml content into html shape.

regards

**jollysr** · Nov 17 '08, 11:56 PM

Originally posted by Dormilich

how do you want your html to look like? if you can answer that it should be easy to bend the xml content into html shape.

regards

Thanks for your reply. I'm looking for an XLST which will transform the xml to a HTML page that should look like the search results from a google page.

Thanks

**Dormilich** · Nov 18 '08, 06:47 AM

that seems rather easy. your xml targets are (imho) <URL> (link, -> <a>), <snippet> (descr., -> ) and <title> (title, -> <h2>). just loop it over <item> and style it appropriately with CSS.

if you're uncertain how to put that into code, I recommend a tutorial.

regards

**jollysr** · Nov 19 '08, 11:50 PM

thank you. .. since I am very newbie, can you or anyone help me how to go about solving the question. Any input or answer in right direction is highly valued. I am reading the xml book to understand myself but that takes longer time than I wish to arrive at the solution.

**Dormilich** · Nov 20 '08, 07:00 AM

first thing I recommend is a tutorial (see above) to get used to the language.

now for the task. what I'd do is, create the desired html page as if it were static (so you can apply the layout and styles you want without any xslt hassle). then you look for repeating patterns.
have a look at one pattern, how is it build? basicly you need to figure out which part of it will depend on the input xml and which form a kind of template. substitute the variable part with suited 'functions' of xslt, add some headers and finís.

example:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE ...>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>%%PAGE_TITLE%%</title>
// meta, css, js definitions
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>%%HEADING_1%%</h2>
    <p>%%some_text%%</p>
    <h2>%%HEADING_2%%</h2>
    <p>%%some_other_text%%</p>
  </body>
</html>

so you have two patterns, the repeating <h2>/ blocks and the html frame (frame in a sense of tag sequence). so template1 will have to produce the frame and template2 will have to be repeatedly called to make the content blocks (where %%text%% is taken from the xml). how to achieve this is covered in nearly every tutorial.

if you stumble upon problems we will be glad helping you to solve the issues.

regards

**jollysr** · Nov 21 '08, 04:29 PM

I successfully managed to get to a point to make my output HTML Page look decent (if not the best) but got stuck in few places:

1) When I run my XSLT, the hyperlink for my URL does not show up
2) The information in my XML is such that sometimes it has Summary information and sometimes Summary is not present for an item. I need something like an if statement where if summary is ‘null’ don’t print it’s value.

1) Code where I try to use hyperlink for my URL but it does not print so: The output file shows the URL as a plain text and not a hyperlink...

 <xsl:attrib ute name="href">
<xsl:value-of select="URL"/>
</xsl:attribute>< xsl:value-of select="URL"/>

2) I need an if statement here where it will select the value only if it is not empty:
 Summary:<xs l:value-of select="summary " disable-output-escaping="yes"/>

Could you please guide me on the above two points…

regards,

**jollysr** · Nov 21 '08, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by jollysr

I successfully managed to get to a point to make my output HTML Page look decent (if not the best) but got stuck in few places:

1) When I run my XSLT, the hyperlink for my URL does not show up
2) The information in my XML is such that sometimes it has Summary information and sometimes Summary is not present for an item. I need something like an if statement where if summary is ‘null’ don’t print it’s value.

1) Code where I try to use hyperlink for my URL but it does not print so: The output file shows the URL as a plain text and not a hyperlink...

 <xsl:attrib ute name="href">
<xsl:value-of select="URL"/>
</xsl:attribute>< xsl:value-of select="URL"/>

2) I need an if statement here where it will select the value only if it is not empty:
 Summary:<xs l:value-of select="summary " disable-output-escaping="yes"/>

Could you please guide me on the above two points…

regards,

I figured out an answer for 1) - it should be <a> and not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!
Could someone help me with 2) ?

**Dormilich** · Nov 21 '08, 06:42 PM

if a element/value is empty its output by <xsl:value-of> is '' (empty string).

if you want to make a fallback (or something like that), use <xsl:if> or <xsl:choose>

Code:

<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test="summary">
    <xsl:value-of select="summary"/> 
// add more text if needed
  </xsl:when>
  <xsl:otherwise>
    <xsl:text>Sorry, no summary found</xsl:text>
  </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

**jollysr** · Nov 22 '08, 01:53 AM

Thanks a lot! That helped.
I'm stuck in another place and would really appreciate if some input is given.
This is my issue:
I need to group the result items according to the directory categories. Directory category name should precede the items that belong to that category.

Directory category:
<directoryCateg ories xmlns:ns2="http ://schemas.xmlsoap .org/soap/encoding/" xsi:type="ns2:A rray" ns2:arrayType=" ns1:DirectoryCa tegory[2]">
<item xsi:type="ns1:D irectoryCategor y">
<fullViewableNa me xmlns:xsi="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xsd:s tring">Top/Arts/Art_History/Artists/E/Escher,_M._C.</fullViewableNam e>

<item xsi:type="ns1:D irectoryCategor y">
<fullViewableNa me xmlns:xsi="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xsd:s tring">Top/Shopping/Visual_Arts/Artists</fullViewableNam e>

The result item has fullViewableNam e, this needs to be grouped under the corresponding value it matches above.

<resultElemen ts xmlns:ns3="http ://schemas.xmlsoap .org/soap/encoding/" xsi:type="ns3:A rray" ns3:arrayType=" ns1:ResultEleme nt[10]">
<item xsi:type="ns1:R esultElement">
<URL xmlns:xsi="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xsd:s tring">http://www.mcescher.co m/</URL>
<cachedSize xmlns:xsi="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xsd:s tring">2k</cachedSize>
<directoryCateg ory xsi:type="ns1:D irectoryCategor y">
<fullViewableNa me xmlns:xsi="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="xsd:s tring">Top/Arts/Art_History/Artists/E/Escher,_M._C.</fullViewableNam e>

Thanks,

**Dormilich** · Nov 23 '08, 07:03 AM

for sorting you can use the <xsl:sort> instruction.

please pleas wrap your code in [code] tags, it's nearly unreadable now (esp. with all that more or less unnecessary namescpace definitions).

you may consider loop over category first and then over all items contained therein.

regards

XML to HTML page

XML to HTML page

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