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160 Chapter 5 Working with Data Views
Adventure Works
When an XML document contains data that does not follow the XML rules (for
example, if you want to include HTML or code in the XML document), you should
include the data in an XML CDATA section to indicate that it should not be parsed
as XML.
Using XSLT
Data Views use XSLT to describe how to transform the XML data that SharePoint retrieves
from a data source to HTML. SharePoint first converts the XML data into an XML
tree, which represents the hierarchical structure of the XML elements and attributes,
known as nodes. The Date Source Details task pane shows this hierarchical structure in
a way similar to a folder structure on a file system, with the list or library represented as
a Rows XML element, the list item represented as a Row XML child element, and each
field represented as an XML attribute. (In XSLT, XML attributes are prefixed with the @
symbol.) The XSLT is then used to navigate the hierarchical structure, and the XML Path
Language (XPath) is used to select one or more nodes.
The XSLT instructions themselves are also represented as XML data. The xsl:template
element contains a match attribute that defines the XPath expression used to select the
set of nodes to be transformed. After a node is selected, components specify how to
manipulate the XML data. These components can include HTML formatting tags and
other XSLT elements. For example, in the following XSLT, the xsl:template element finds
the Invoice XML element, and the HTML formats the xsl:value-of element. Using the
XML data given as an example in the sidebar “An XML Primer,” this XSLT would render
Adventure Works as a new paragraph in bold font.