Question

I want to create a ASP.NET user control from an XML using XSLT.
Currently I really put the result together bit by bit:

<xsl:template match="TextField">
   <xsl:apply-templates select="Label" />
   <xsl:text><![CDATA[<asp:TextBox ID="]]></xsl:text>
   <xsl:value-of select="@id"/>
   <xsl:if test="@defaultValue">
      <xsl:text><![CDATA[" value="]]></xsl:text>
      <xsl:value-of select="@defaultValue"/>
   </xsl:if>
   <xsl:text><![CDATA[" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>]]></xsl:text>
   <xsl:copy-of select="$br"/>
</xsl:template>

It would be rally cool if I could instead do something like this:

<xsl:template match="TextField">
   <xsl:apply-templates select="Label" />

   <xsl:variable name="localTemplate" select="expression">
      <xsl:text><![CDATA[
         <asp:TextBox ID="{theID}" value="{theDefaultValue}" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
      ]]></xsl:text>
      <xsl:copy-of select="$br"/>
   </xsl:variable>

   <!-- replace {theID} and {theDefaultValue} from the corresponding
       values of the input XML and then return the content of that
       variable
   -->
</xsl:template>

Because that seems much cleaner and more easy to maintain later on when there is the need to change the html structure.

Is there a way to achieve this and if yes, how would that look like?
I don’t need a working solution, just some hints on what to do.

Update: Here is some sample input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Form xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="XmlForm.xsd">

   <Validation enabled="false" enableValidationSummary="true" />
   <FieldSet>
      <TextField id="firstInput" css-class="textfield-css-class" />

      <TextField id="secondInput" defaultValue="Wrdlbmrpft">
         <Label translatable="true" >Label Text</Label>
      </TextField>
   </FieldSet>
</Form>

The output should look like this:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" Inherits="DevelopmentWeb.WebUserControl1" %>
<asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="firstInput" CssClass="textfield-css-class"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:Label runat="server" AssociatedControlID="secondInput">Label Text</asp:Label>
<asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="secondInput">Wrdlbrmpft</asp:TextBox>

Answer 1

I don’t think there would be any reason to create a variable. You should be able to do something like this:

  <xsl:template match="TextField">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="Label" />
    <asp:TextBox ID="{@id}" value="{@defaultValue}" runat="server"/>    
    <xsl:copy-of select="$br"/>
  </xsl:template>

or this:

  <xsl:template match="TextField">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="Label" />
    <asp:TextBox runat="server">
      <xsl:if test="@id">
        <xsl:attribute name="ID">
          <xsl:value-of select="@id"/>
        </xsl:attribute>
      </xsl:if>    
      <xsl:if test="@defaultValue">
        <xsl:attribute name="value">
          <xsl:value-of select="@defaultValue"/>
        </xsl:attribute>
      </xsl:if>
    </asp:TextBox>
    <xsl:copy-of select="$br"/>
  </xsl:template>