Question

I have two xml files, say file1.xml which is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root >
    <text id='a'>This is to be replaced</text>
    <note>This should not be touched</note>
    <text id='b'>This is intact</text>
</root>

file2.xml is as follows

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root >
    <text id='a'>Replacement Text</text>
    <note>This is a personal note</note>
</root>

I expect an output xml file of the form :

output.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <text id='a'>Replacement Text</text>
    <note>This should not be touched</note>
    <text id='b'>This is intact</text>
</root>

Please help me with a xsl to get the desired output. This is not a homework and I am trying to understand xslt.

Answer 1

This transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
 <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

 <xsl:variable name="vReps" select="document('file:///c:/temp/delete/file2.xml')/*/*[1]"/>

 <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
     <xsl:copy>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
     </xsl:copy>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="text[@id='a']/text()">
  <xsl:value-of select="$vReps"/>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on this XML document (the provided file1.xml):

<root>
    <text id='a'>This is to be replaced</text>
    <note>This should not be touched</note>
    <text id='b'>This is intact</text>
</root>

and having the provided file2.xml residing in c:\temp\delete\file2.xml:

<root>
    <text id='a'>Replacement Text</text>
    <note>This is a personal note</note>
</root>

produces the wanted, correct result:

<root>
   <text id="a">Replacement Text</text>
   <note>This should not be touched</note>
   <text id="b">This is intact</text>
</root>

Explanation:

1. Use and overriding of the identity rule.

2. Use of the standard XSLT function document().