XML transformation using Xslt in C#

Xml transformation using Xslt in C#

by: maheshcr

Summary:

Xml is a meta-markup language that provides a format for describing data. Xslt is one way to consume and transform this data into a variety different formats, including Xml, html and wml. In this article we shall learn how to transform a simple Xml document using Xslt.

The .NET framework provides rich support for the manipulation of Xml documents.

The main namespaces that provide us with the needed classes are:

System.Xml
System.Xml.XPath
System.Xml.Xsl

Xml Transformation steps

The steps to transform an Xml document are

1) Load the Xml document

XPathDocument myXPathDoc = new XPathDocument(<xml file path>) ;

2) Load the Xsl file

XslTransform myXslTrans = new XslTransform() ;
myXslTrans.Load(<xsl file path>);

3) Create a stream for output

XmlTextWriter myWriter = new XmlTextWriter("result.html",null) ;

4) Perform the actual transformation

myXslTrans.Transform(myXPathDoc,null,myWriter) ;

Sample Code

Check the code below for a C# command line application that transforms Xml with Xsl.

Compile and run the application. Usage is as follows:

XmlTransformUtil.exe <xml file path> <xsl file path>

You could use the provided sampledoc.xml and sample.xsl to have a go at it. You should see a 'result.html' in the same folder as the application with the results of the transformation.

using System ;
using System.IO ;
using System.Xml ;
using System.Xml.Xsl ;
using System.Xml.XPath ;

public class XmlTransformUtil{

    public static void Main(string[] args){
        
        if (args.Length == 2){
            
            Transform(args[0], args[1]) ;
            
            
        }else{
            
            PrintUsage() ;
            
        }
        
    
    }
    
    public static void Transform(string sXmlPath, string sXslPath){
        
        try{
            
            //load the Xml doc
            XPathDocument myXPathDoc = new XPathDocument(sXmlPath) ;

            XslTransform myXslTrans = new XslTransform() ;
            
            //load the Xsl 
            myXslTrans.Load(sXslPath) ;
            
            //create the output stream
            XmlTextWriter myWriter = new XmlTextWriter
				("result.html", null);
            
            //do the actual transform of Xml
            myXslTrans.Transform(myXPathDoc,null, myWriter);        

            myWriter.Close() ;


        }catch(Exception e){

            Console.WriteLine("Exception: {0}", e.ToString());
        }
        
    }
    
    
    public static void PrintUsage(){
        Console.WriteLine
		("Usage: XmlTransformUtil.exe <xml path> <xsl path>");
    }

}

sampledoc.xml (control-a to copy)

sample.xsl (control-a to copy)

<xsl:stylesheet 
      xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
      version="1.0">

<xsl:output method="html" />		
	
	
	<xsl:template match="/">
	
		<html>
	
			<head>
				
				<title>Welcome to <xsl:value-of select="/company/name"/></title>
				
				<style>
					body,td {font-family:Tahoma,Arial; font-size:9pt;}
				</style>
				
			</head>
			
			<body>
				<h2>Welcome to <xsl:value-of select="/company/name"/></h2>
				<p/>
				<b>Our contact details:</b>
				<br/>
				<br/>		
				<xsl:value-of select="/company/name"/>
				<br/>
				<xsl:value-of select="/company/address1"/>
				<br/>
				<xsl:value-of select="/company/address2"/>
				<br/>
				<xsl:value-of select="/company/city"/>
				<br/>
				<xsl:value-of select="/company/country"/>
			</body>
	
		</html>
	
	</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>