The History Of XSLT
XSLT or Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations is a XML based language used to transform XML documents into other XML documents. Instead of the original document being changed, a new document is created, the base of which is the original's content. XML data is converted into HTML or XHTML documents which are then can be displayed as a web page. XSLT is also used to translate XML messages between various XML schemas or make changes in an individual one by editing parts of a message.
The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C as it is better known is instrumental in developing XSLT editor. XSLT was originally a part of W3C's Extensible Stylesheet Language development effort which took place between 1998 and 1999. The project also produced XSL Formatting Objects and the XML Path Language known as XPath. In November 1999 XSLT 1.0 was published by the World Wide Web Consortium. The attempt to create XSLT 1.1 in 2001 was cancelled and after that the XSL group allied with the XQuery workforce to create XPath 2.0. XPath 2.0 had a model where more data storage was possible and the type system was based on XML Schema. XSLT 2.0 was built between 2002 and 2006.
Functional languages influence XSLT and by text pattern matching languages as traditionally has been the case for SNOBOL and awk. The processing model of XSLT involves one or more XML documents which act as source, one or XSLT stylesheet modules, the processor which is also known as the XSLT template processing engine and one or more than one result documents.
The XSLT editor allows one to view and edit a stylesheet code in a tabular format. Most text developers prefer using a tool like Advanced Text View to watch over something like this. While editing XSLT, Advanced Text View provides syntax coloring, numbering of lines, source folding, bookmarking. These help in organizing and navigating through the code quickly and making the whole process much easier. The XSLT editor has built in tools which have proper knowledge about of XSL, XSLT and XHTML. The entry helper windows are cleverly constructed and the drop down menu offers one a variety of choice regarding the elements, attributes and entities which can be inserted with a single click. The code completion tool speeds up typing and ensures the opening and closing of tags are much more balanced affair.
XSLT is available in Internet Explorer since 2001. It was available even earlier than that but the form was not compatible with the specifications drawn out by W3C. XSLT processors are also often seen as standalone products or as components of other web browsers, servers or JAVA or .NET. Various browsers come with either XSLT or earlier versions which can be upgraded to suit the modern web environment.
With the maturing of technology, XSLT performance has improved. Since code generation of languages is common, XSLT editors are helpful in helping people with the editing and helps in proper development of stylesheet.
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