XSLT supplies a built-in template rule that's invoked when no explicit
template rule matches a node during apply-templates. The built-in rule
does as you've discovered: it processes the grandchildren. This is often
useful, but if you don't want this behavior, just change it:

<xsl:template match="*"/>

creates a fallback template rule that does nothing.

Michael Kay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Borislav Stoyanov
> Sent: 26 August 2003 13:32
> To: 'XSL-List@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject:  How do you apply templates ONLY to the direct 
> children of an element/node?
> 
> 
> Hallo all,
> 
> How do you apply templates ONLY to the direct children of an 
> element/node, supposed you dont know their name? What if 
> there is no matching template, why are grandchildren also matched?
> 
> Let 
> <element-1>
>     <unknown-element>
>        ....
>     </unknown-element>
> <element-1>
> be the xml file to be transformed.
> 
> Now you got the following transforming rule:
> <xsl:template match="element-1">
>     <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> What I expect is that if an xsl <unknown-element> template 
> rule is not available nothing should happen. However I get 
> apply-templates on the elements contained in 
> <unknown-element>...</unknown-element>. Why does it happen 
> and how can I achieve to apply the templates ONLY to the 
> direct children and avoid the implied apply-template rules to 
> the grandchildren and so on? Or is this a simple xsl question :)?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


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