Modify or Replace XML data using XSLT

There are many ways we can replace a block of xml node using various scripting languages. In a recent project I have used XSLT to replace the xml node. I thought that I should share that knowledge with you guys. In this example I have a XML file for company department and I want to replace an employee�s record in the xml file with a new one.

Companydept.xml

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Department>
    <ID>D7890000</ID>
    <DeptName>IT</DeptName>       
 <Employees>
     <Employee>
         <EID>0001</EID>
   <Name>Ann James</Name>
            <Age>35</Age>   
  </Employee>
  <Employee>
         <EID>0002</EID>
   <Name>Batty Gomas</Name>
            <Age>42</Age>   
  </Employee>
  <Employee>
         <EID>0003</EID>
   <Name>Boss</Name>
            <Age>28</Age>
  </Employee>
 </Employees>
</Department>

Employee ID 0001 should be replaced with a new record.

Following XSLT will replace this record.

Dept.xsl

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="node()|@*">
    <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="local-name()='Employee'">
        <xsl:call-template name="Employee"/>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:copy>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose> 
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template name="Employee">       
     <xsl:choose>
     <xsl:when test="EID='0001'">
         <xsl:element name="Employee">
         <xsl:element name="EID"><xsl:value-of select="EID" /></xsl:element>
      <xsl:element name="Name">Agustine</xsl:element>
      <xsl:element name="Age">35</xsl:element>
     </xsl:element>
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise>
         <xsl:copy-of select="." />
     </xsl:otherwise>         
     </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

For testing this XSLT in the xml add following line to XML file.

Code:

<?xml-stylesheet href="Dept.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>

The output XML should be like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Department>
  <ID>001</ID>
  <DeptName>IT</DeptName>
  <Employees>
    <Employee>
      <EID>001</EID>
      <Name>Agustine</Name>
      <Age>35</Age>
    </Employee>
    <Employee>
      <EID>0002</EID>
      <Name>Batty Gomas</Name>
      <Age>42</Age>
    </Employee>
    <Employee>
      <EID>0003</EID>
      <Name>Boss</Name>
      <Age>28</Age>
    </Employee>
  </Employees>
</Department>

XSL reads all the nodes and check for the particular node to replace it with new nodes.

Please post any comments about this example.


Thanks