Question

I want to extract around 20 element types from some SVG documents to form a new SVG.
rect, circle, polygon, text, polyline, basically a set of visual parts are in the white list.
JavaScript, comments, animations and external links need to go.

Three methods come to mind:

1. Regex: I’m completely familiar with, and would rather not go there obviously.
2. PHP DOM: Used once perhaps a year ago.
3. XSLT: Took my first look just now.

If XSLT is the right tool for the job, what xsl:stylesheet do I need?
Otherwise, which approach would you use?

Example input:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!-- Created with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) -->
<svg xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" width="512" height="512" id="svg2">
<title>Mostly harmless</title>
  <metadata id="metadata7">Some metadata</metadata>

<script type="text/ecmascript">
<![CDATA[
alert('Hax!');
]]>
</script>
<style type="text/css">
<![CDATA[ svg{display:none} ]]>
</style>

  <defs id="defs4">
    <circle id="my_circle" cx="100" cy="50" r="40" fill="red"/> 
  </defs>

  <g id="layer1">
  <a xlink:href="www.hax.ru">
    <use xlink:href="#my_circle" x="20" y="20"/>
    <use xlink:href="#my_circle" x="100" y="50"/>
  </a>
  </g>
  <text>
    <tspan>It was the best of times</tspan>
    <tspan dx="-140" dy="15">It was the worst of times.</tspan>
  </text>
</svg>

Example output. Displays exactly the same image:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="512" height="512">
  <defs>
    <circle id="my_circle" cx="100" cy="50" r="40" fill="red"/> 
  </defs>
  <g id="layer1">
    <use xlink:href="#my_circle" x="20" y="20"/>
    <use xlink:href="#my_circle" x="100" y="50"/>
  </g>
  <text>
    <tspan>It was the best of times</tspan>
    <tspan dx="-140" dy="15">It was the worst of times.</tspan>
  </text>
</svg>

The approximate list of keeper elements is: g, rect, circle, ellipse, line, polyline, polygon, path, text, tspan, tref, textpath, linearGradient+stop, radialGradient, defs, clippath, path.

If not specifically SVG tiny, then certainly SVG lite.

Answer 1

Dimitre Novatchev’s solution is more “clean” and elegant, but if you need a “whitelist” solution (because you can’t predict what content users may input that you would need to “blacklist”), then you would need to fully flesh out the “whitelist”.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"
    xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
    <xsl:output indent="yes" />

    <!--The "whitelist" template that will copy matched nodes forward and apply-templates
        for any attributes or child nodes -->
    <xsl:template match="svg:svg 
        | svg:defs  | svg:defs/text()
        | svg:g  | svg:g/text()
        | svg:a  | svg:a/text()
        | svg:use   | svg:use/text()
        | svg:rect  | svg:rect/text()
        | svg:circle  | svg:circle/text()
        | svg:ellipse  | svg:ellipse/text()
        | svg:line  | svg:line/text()
        | svg:polyline  | svg:polyline/text()
        | svg:polygon  | svg:polygon/text()
        | svg:path  | svg:path/text()
        | svg:text  | svg:text/text()
        | svg:tspan  | svg:tspan/text()
        | svg:tref  | svg:tref/text()
        | svg:textpath  | svg:textpath/text()
        | svg:linearGradient  | svg:linearGradient/text()
        | svg:radialGradient  | svg:radialGradient/text()
        | svg:clippath  | svg:clippath/text()
        | svg:text | svg:text/text()">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:copy-of select="@*" />
            <xsl:apply-templates select="node()" />
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <!--The "blacklist" template, which does nothing except apply templates for the 
        matched node's attributes and child nodes -->
    <xsl:template match="@* | node()">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()" />
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>