Table of contents

Appendices

5.3 Defining Template Rules

< template
   match= pattern
   name= qname
   priority= number
   mode= qname >
   <-- Content: param* -->
< /template>

A template rule is specified with the xsl:template element. The match attribute is a Pattern that identifies the source node or nodes to which the rule applies. The match attribute is required unless the xsl:template element has a name attribute (see [Named Templates]). It is an error for the value of the match attribute to contain a VariableReference. The content of the xsl:template element is the template that is instantiated when the template rule is applied.

For example, an XML document might contain:

This is an <emph>important</emph> point.

The following template rule matches emph elements and produces a fo:inline-sequence formatting object with a font-weight property of bold.

<xsl:template match="emph">
  <fo:inline-sequence font-weight="bold">
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </fo:inline-sequence>
</xsl:template>

NOTE: 

Examples in this document use the fo: prefix for the namespace http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format, which is the namespace of the formatting objects defined in [XSL].

As described next, the xsl:apply-templates element recursively processes the children of the source element.