xml-dev - RE: new to XML

[Mike Brown <mbrown@corp.webb.net>]

Mark Hu wrote:
> Actually, what's the exact diference between :
> 
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
> and
> <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/XSL/Transform/1.0'>

This should help.

xmlns:xsl="foo" is saying that the URI 'foo' is bound to the prefix 'xsl'
and that this prefix can henceforth be used to relate elements to the
namespace 'foo'. Thus the elements that have special meaning to an XSL
processor (as being XSLT instructions) can be distinguished from those that
don't. That is to say, the instructions xsl:stylesheet, xsl:template,
xsl:value-of are known to the XSL processor *not* by virtue of the prefix
being 'xsl', but by the fact that those elements are associated with a
*particular* namespace URI that the processor knows about.

Originally there was just the "XSL" working draft which specified that the
namespace URI to use was http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl. When the April 1999
working drafts of XSL(FO) and XSLT arrived, the XSLT namespace URI became
http://www.w3.org/XSL/Transform/1.0. When the October 1999 proposed
recommendation was released, the URI changed to
http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform and the version="1.0" attribute became
mandatory for the xsl:stylesheet element. The version attribute was not used
with the older URIs. The November 1999 final version of XSLT 1.0, which was
adopted by the W3C as a Recommendation, uses the latter URI and the version
attribute.

Now for your problem, all versions of IE ship with an XML/DOM/XSL toolkit
called MSXML 2.0, the meat of which is in a MSXML.DLL file in your Windows
system32 directory. MSXML 2.0 supports only a subset of the Dec 1998 working
draft of "XSL". For more information about how to upgrade your MSXML, see
the unofficial FAQ at http://www.netcrucible.com/xslt/msxml-faq.htm

...and please continue this thread on the xsl-list, not xml-dev. See
http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/ for info how to join.
(note: Reply-To on this message)