Operation Manual

476
USING DREAMWEAVER
Displaying XML data with XSLT
Last updated 3/28/2012
The following code is for the same table with the Repeating Region XSLT object applied to it:
<xsl:for-each select="rss/channel/item">
<table width="500" border="1">
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="description"/></td>
</tr>
</table>
</xsl:for-each>
In the previous example, Dreamweaver has updated the XPath for the items that fall within the Repeating Region (title
& description) to be relative to the XPath in the enclosing
<xsl:for-each> tags, rather than the full document.
Dreamweaver generates context-relative XPath expressions in other cases as well. For example, if you drag an XML
data placeholder to a table that already has a Repeating Region XSLT object applied to it, Dreamweaver automatically
displays the XPath relative to the existing XPath in the enclosing
<xsl:for-each> tags.
More Help topics
“Display repeating XML elements” on page 481
Previewing XML data
When you use Preview in Browser (File > Preview in Browser) to preview XML data that you’ve inserted in an XSLT
fragment or an entire XSLT page, the engine that performs the XSL transformation differs from situation to situation.
For dynamic pages containing XSLT fragments, the application server always performs the transformation. At other
times, either Dreamweaver or the browser might be performing the transformation.
The following table summarizes the situations when using Preview in Browser, and the engines that perform the
respective transformations:
The following topics provide guidelines for helping you determine the appropriate previewing methods, based on your
needs.
Previewing pages for server-side transformations
In the case of server-side transformations, the content the site visitor ultimately sees is transformed by your application
server. When building XSLT and dynamic pages for use with server-side transformations, it is always preferable to
preview the dynamic page that contains the XSLT fragment instead of the XSLT fragment itself. In the former scenario,
you make use of the application server, which ensures that your preview is consistent with what your site visitors will
see when they visit your page. In the latter scenario, Dreamweaver performs the transformation, and could provide
slightly inconsistent results. You can use Dreamweaver to preview your XSLT fragment while you are building it, but
you’ll be able to see the most accurate results of the data rendering if you use the application server to preview your
dynamic page after you’ve inserted the XSLT fragment.
Type of page previewed in browser Data transformation performed by
Dynamic page containing XSLT fragment Application server
XSLT fragment or entire XSLT page Dreamweaver
XML file with link to entire XSLT page Browser