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Chapter 4. Branching and Control Elements

Contents:

Goals of This Chapter
Branching Elements of XSLT
Invoking Templates by Name
Parameters
Variables
Using Recursion to Do Most Anything
A Stylesheet That Emulates a for Loop
A Stylesheet That Generates a Stylesheet That Emulates a for Loop
Summary

So far, we've done some straightforward transformations and we've been able to do some reasonably sophisticated things. To do truly useful work, though, we'll need to use logic in our stylesheets. In this chapter, we'll discuss the XSLT elements that allow you to do just that. Although you'll see several XML elements that look like constructs from other programming languages, they're not exactly the same. As we go along, we'll discuss what makes XSLT different and how to do common tasks with your stylesheets.

4.1. Goals of This Chapter

By the end of this chapter, you should:



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