xsl:for-each Element

Allows application of the same template to multiple nodes.

Syntax

<xsl:for-each
    order-by="{+|-} xsl-pattern" 
    select="pattern" >

Attributes

order-by

First character selects the sort direction, either ascending (+) or descending (-). The rest of the pattern is a limited version of the XSL Pattern-Matching Syntax.

select

XSL pattern to be matched against the current context. The default value "node()" indicates evaluation of the current node.

Element Information

Number of occurrences Unlimited

Parent elements xsl:attribute, xsl:cdata, xsl:comment, xsl:copy, xsl:element, xsl:for-each, xsl:if, xsl:otherwise, xsl:pi, xsl:template, xsl:text, xsl:when

Child elements xsl:apply-templates, xsl:attribute, xsl:choose, xsl:cdata, xsl:comment, xsl:copy, xsl:define-template-set, xsl:element, xsl:entity-ref, xsl:eval, xsl:for-each, xsl:if, xsl:node-name, xsl:pi, xsl:value-of

Requires closing tag Yes. XSL is an XML grammar and, like all XML grammars, all tags must have closing tags to satisfy the definition of well-formed.

Number of occurrences	Unlimited
Parent elements	xsl:attribute, xsl:cdata, xsl:comment, xsl:copy, xsl:element, xsl:for-each, xsl:if, xsl:otherwise, xsl:pi, xsl:template, xsl:text, xsl:when
Child elements	xsl:apply-templates, xsl:attribute, xsl:choose, xsl:cdata, xsl:comment, xsl:copy, xsl:define-template-set, xsl:element, xsl:entity-ref, xsl:eval, xsl:for-each, xsl:if, xsl:node-name, xsl:pi, xsl:value-of
Requires closing tag	Yes. XSL is an XML grammar and, like all XML grammars, all tags must have closing tags to satisfy the definition of well-formed.

Remarks

The xsl:for-each element establishes the context for iteration; the XSL transformation instructions within this loop are to be applied to each node that matches the supplied pattern. Each xsl:for-each element defines a new context against which the pattern-matching occurs.

Example

This example specifies a template that defines what the structure of the overall output document should be (a top-level HTML element containing BODY and TABLE elements with repeated rows for each customer) and uses templates to create TD elements for the name, address, and phone source elements.
<HTML xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
  <BODY>
    <TABLE>
      <xsl:for-each select="customers/customer">
        <TR>
          <xsl:value-of select="name" />
          <xsl:value-of select="address" />
          <xsl:value-of select="phone" />
        </TR>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </TABLE>
  </BODY>
</HTML>