The XSLT extension is perhaps the most straightforward way to perform XML to HTML transformations using PHP4. It uses the Sablotron XML toolkit to perform these tasks and is considered a stable (that is, nonexperimental) extension.

Although a few vendors ship PHP4 with XSLT module support compiled in, most users will need to add support themselves if they want to use the XSLT extension. As was the case with DOM XML, code for the XSLT extension was removed from the standard PHP distribution for PHP5.

Sample Transformation Using PHP4 and XSLT

Listing 9.5. Sample Transformation File test-xslt.php

1   <?php
2
3       $path_xml = "freedomland.xml";
4       $path_style = "forest.xsl";
5
6       $xslt_parse = xslt_create();
7       if (!$output_html = xslt_process($xslt_parse, $path_xml, $path_style)) {
8           echo "Error using " . $path_style . " on " . $path_xml . "!\n";
9           exit;
10       }
11
12       xslt_free($xslt_parse);
13
14       echo $output_html;
15
16   ?>

This document is simple enough that many PHP users will understand it with little or no trouble; however, a brief walk-through will clarify its flow for those less familiar with PHP scripts.

• Lines 1 and 16 begin and end the PHP script and should at this point need little further explanation.

• Lines 3 and 4 create and define variables to hold the names of the input XML file and the XSLT stylesheet, respectively.

• Line 6 creates a new XSLT processor resource that will use the Sablotron library to apply the XSLT stylesheet templates to the input XML file.

• Line 7 calls the xslt_process function, the central function in the XSLT extension, to apply the XSLT stylesheet template to the input XML file using the processor resource created in line 6. The HTML output is returned to string variable $output_html.

• Lines 8 and 9 display an error message and end execution if for some reason the processor resource $xslt_parse can't be accessed or the files given by $path_xml or $path_style can't be opened or accessed.

• Line 12 frees the XSLT processor resource because the script has now finished using it.

• Line 14 outputs the HTML contents of string variable $output_html for the Web browser.

Using other PHP skills you have already acquired, you should be able to incorporate these tools easily into more complex scripts.

XSLT Functions and Properties of Note

In addition to the tools discussed in , several functions or properties may be useful to PHP users needing to access XSLT transformations with the Sablotron-based XSLT extension module. These are shown in .

Additional details on these and other functions and properties related to the PHP4 XSLT module can be found by visiting the documentation at .

Including XSLT Support in PHP4 via XSLT

If you are using the standard PHP4 distribution from on a Windows system, you may be able to enable the XSLT extension by making a change to your php.ini configuration file. To do this, open up the file with a text editor such as Notepad and find the following line:

;extension=php_sablot.dll

Remove the leading semicolon on this line so that the line reads as shown:

extension=php_sablot.dll

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