XSLT Basics

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Reference
A quick overview of how to use XSLT in umbraco.

Chapters

• Chapter 1: What is XSLT
• Chapter 2: How umbraco uses XSLT.
• Chapter 3: XSLT - The Basics
• Chapter 4: Understanding "currentPage"
• Chapter 5: Using XPATH
• Chapter 6: XPATH and XSLT Loops
• Chapter 7: More Commands and the umbraco.library
• Chapter 8: Some XSLT Logic
• Chapter 9: Using Variables and Parameters
• Chapter 10: XPATH Axes and their Shortcuts.

What is XSLT

XSLT, or eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, is a document that is applied programmatically to an XML Document to manipulate the data.  The structure of XSLT resembles that of XML, and contains specialized tags to perform specific actions to the data.

In umbraco, XSLT is utilized through the use of macros, which are the dynamic building block of front-end content.  These templates can be used for various tasks, including the building of navigation structures, display of content nodes in a customizable format.

umbraco also exposes a series of functions to XSLT documents for the manipulation of the data beyond the standard capabilities of XSLT functions.  These XSLT Extensions are easily referenced within the mark-up of the XSLT, allowing for easy manipulation of the data for even the most novice developers.