"choose" - The If...Else Element

XML Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - Version 5.05, by Dr. Herong Yang

XML Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟XSLT Elements as Programming Statements

∟"choose" - The If...Else Element

This section describes the 'choose' element, which is used in the content of a 'template' element. The 'choose' element is a conditional statement that be used to put different output contents under different logical conditions.

choose: A child element used as part of the content of a "template" element. A "choose" element serves as a conditional selection statement to do different things under different conditions. A "choose" element is a like "if...else" statement in many other computer languages. The syntax of the "choose" element is:

<xsl:choose>
 <xsl:when test="condition1">
  content
 </xsl:when>
 <xsl:when test="condition2">
  content
 </xsl:when>
 ...
 <xsl:otherwise>
  content
 </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

where "condition1" and "condition2" are XPath expressions to return Boolean values.

If one of test conditions returns true, the content associated with that condition will be used. All other contents will be ignored.

Here are some examples of "if" elements:

<xsl:choose>
<!-- for expired elements, output a message -->
<xsl:when test="@status='expired'">
 This <xsl:value-of select="name(.)"/> record has expired!
</xsl:when>

<!-- for active elements, apply transformations -->
<xsl:when test="@status='active'">
 <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:when>

<xsl:otherwise>
 Error: Unkown status!
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

Last update: 2014.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Introduction of XML (eXtensible Markup Language)

XML File Syntax

XML File Browsers

DOM (Document Object Model) Programming Interface

SAX (Simple API for XML) Programming Interface

DTD (Document Type Definition) Introduction

Syntaxes of DTD Statements

Validating an XML Document against the Specified DTD Document Type

XSD (XML Schema Definition) Introduction