Professional JavaScript For Web Developers

Chapter 15
You don’t need to start the transformation from the document level; every node has the
transformNode() method. The following are all valid:
sResult = oXmlDom.documentElement.transformNode(oXslDom);
sResult = oXmlDom.documentElement.childNodes[1].transformNode(oXslDom);
sResult = oXmlDom.getElementsByTagName(“name”)[0].transformNode(oXslDom);
sResult = oXmlDom.documentElement.firstChild.lastChild.transformnode(oXslDom);
If you call transformNode() from anywhere other than the document element, you start the transformation
at that spot. The XSLT style sheet, however, still has access to the full XML document from which
that node came.
The more complicated way to use XSLT in IE is to use an XSL template and processor. To do so, you
must use a few more ActiveX controls from the MSXML library. First, the XSLT file must be loaded into
a free-threaded DOM document, which behaves just like a regular DOM document but is thread-safe:
var oXslDom = new ActiveXObject(“MSXML2.FreeThreadedDOMDocument”);
oXslDom.async = false;
oXslDom.load(“employees.xsl”);
After the free-threaded DOM document is created and loaded, it must be assigned to an XSL template,
which is another ActiveX object:
var oTemplate = new ActiveXObject(“MSXML2.XSLTemplate”);
oTemplate.stylesheet = oXslDom;
The XSL template is then used to create an XSL processor (you guessed it, another ActiveX object):
var oProcessor = oTemplate.createProcessor();
With the processor created, you set the input property equal to the XML DOM node to transform and
then call the transform() method:
oProcessor.input = oXmlDom;
oProcessor.transform();
The resulting string is then accessible from the output property:
var sResult = oProcessor.output;
All this code mimics the functionality of transformNode(). You may be wondering why anyone would
use the XSL template/processor methodology if it does the same thing as transformNode(). The answer
is that the processor allows you more control over XSLT.
For example, XSLT style sheets accept parameters that can be passed in and used as local variables.
Consider the following style sheet:
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