CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-3.xxmlxsltlxml
Leo
Leo

Reputation: 5132

XSLT not working when no root element container is included

I want to create a text file from an XML file using XSLT.

Here is my code:

import lxml.etree as ET

dom = ET.parse('a_file.xml')
xslt = ET.parse('a_file.xsl')
transform = ET.XSLT(xslt)
newdom = transform(dom)
print(ET.tostring(newdom, pretty_print=True))

when a_file.xsl does not contain a root element within the template like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/">

    <xsl:text>{ this is a test }</xsl:text>
    
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

the code returns None, however when I add a root element, then it works ie. <r><xsl:text>{ this is a test }</xsl:text></r>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 198

Answers (1)

Luke Woodward
Luke Woodward

Reputation: 64969

If you want to create a text file as the result of an XSLT transformation, then there are two changes you need to make to the code in your question.

Firstly, you need to tell the XSLT that it will generate text output. Add the following element to your stylesheet, as a direct child of the <xsl:stylesheet> element:

    <xsl:output method="text" encoding="utf-8" />

Secondly, if you want to convert the result to a string, follow the guidance in the lxml documentation and call str(...) on it, i.e.

print(str(newdom))

instead of

print(ET.tostring(newdom, pretty_print=True))

Upvotes: 2

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