xsl:include

Used to include the contents of one stylesheet within another.

Category: declaration
Content: none
Permitted parent elements: xsl:package ; xsl:stylesheet ; xsl:transform

Attributes

href

uri

A URL (absolute or relative) of another stylesheet to be textually included within this one.

To customize the way in which the href attribute is handled, a user-written URIResolver can be supplied (or on .NET, an XMLResolver). Note that it is the compile-time URIResolver that is used, not the run-time URIResolver. See also Using XML catalogs.

If the URI is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the base URI of the xsl:include element itself, which normally is the location of the file containing the source stylesheet module. If the stylesheet is loaded other than from a file (for example, if it is supplied as a string literal in the source of the application program that invokes the transformation), then a base URI should be supplied when invoking the compilation.

Saxon availability

Available in XSLT 1.0 and later versions. Available in all Saxon editions. Available for all platforms.

Details

The xsl:include element is always used at the top level of the stylesheet. The top-level elements of the included stylesheet effectively replace the xsl:include element.

The xsl:include element may also be used at the top level of the included stylesheet, and so on recursively.

("Textual inclusion" here is a simplification: attributes and namespaces declared on the xsl:stylesheet element of the including module do not affect anything in the included module.)

Links to W3C specifications

XSLT 2.0 Specification

XSLT 3.0 Specification