Script Element

Using a Script Element is the the most direct way of executing an XSLT transform from Saxon-CE. You need two script elements, one for the Saxon-CE code, and one for the XSLT stylesheet:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="../Saxonce/Saxonce.nocache.js"></script> <script type="application/xslt+xml" language="xslt2.0" src="books.xsl" data-source="books.xml"></script>

The first script element is a reference to the Saxon-CE code, located by means of a relative URI in the normal way. The module Saxonce.nocache.js is a small stub module located within the Saxonce directory, this in turn brings in one of a number of larger modules containing the compiled XSLT engine, in slightly different forms depending on which browser is in use.

Note: The relative URI to the Saxon-CE code may reference either the debug or production directories that are shipped with Saxon-CE, depending on the requirement. See Installing the Software for details.

The second script element typically contains references to the source document and stylesheet. Again these are relative URIs.

The attributes recognized on this element are:

Attribute	Meaning
type	Should always be `application/xslt+xml`
language	Should always be `xslt2.0`
src	Mandatory. Relative URI of the XSLT stylesheet
data-source	Optional. Relative URI of the initial source document. If absent, the attribute `data-initial-template` must be present.
data-initial-template	Name of the named template in the stylesheet at which execution is to commence. If this is namespace-qualified, use Clark notation `{uri}local`.
data-initial-mode	Name of the mode in the stylesheet at which execution is to commence. If this is namespace-qualified, use Clark notation `{uri}local`.

Assuming that data-source is supplied, execution proceeds as follows. When the page is loaded, the Saxon stub will be executed, the source document will be fetched, the stylesheet will be compiled, and the stylesheet will be invoked with the source document as its principal input (initial context node). So the <xsl:template match="/"> template will be invoked in the usual way.

When using XSLT 1.0 in the browser, it is common to generate a complete HTML page as output from the transformation. With XSLT 2.0, a more effective technique is to write multiple fragments of HTML, using them to populate named portions of the HTML page. So the initial HTML page will generally contain a skeletal structure of elements such as div element, each with an id attribute, waiting to be populated by the stylesheet.