What is XSLT?

If XML describes structured information, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) describes how that information can be transformed into another format.

XSLT is commonly used to convert XML into HTML for display in a web browser.

A typical transformation process looks like this:

XML Document > XSLT Stylesheet > HTML Document

XSLT uses XPath expressions to locate elements within the XML document.

For example, a stylesheet can extract customer names from an XML file and generate an HTML table automatically.

Because both XML and XSLT are text-based standards, the same data can be presented in different ways without modifying the original XML document.

XSLT is supported by many XML parsers and modern web browsers.

If you want to read the details, check out the W3C XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0 Recommendation. Good reading!