XML transformation using Xslt in C#

Xml transformation using Xslt in C#

Summary:

Xml is a meta-markup language that provides a format for describing data. Xslt is one
way to consume and transform this data into a variety different formats, including Xml,
html and wml. In this article we shall learn how to transform a simple Xml document
using Xslt.

The .NET framework provides rich support for the manipulation of Xml documents.

The main namespaces that provide us with the needed classes are:

System.Xml
System.Xml.XPath
System.Xml.Xsl

Xml Transformation steps

The steps to transform an Xml document are

1) Load the Xml document

XPathDocument myXPathDoc = new XPathDocument(<xml file path>) ;
2) Load the Xsl file
XslTransform myXslTrans = new XslTransform() ;
myXslTrans.Load(<xsl file path>);
3) Create a stream for output
XmlTextWriter myWriter = new XmlTextWriter("result.html",null) ;
4) Perform the actual transformation
myXslTrans.Transform(myXPathDoc,null,myWriter) ;
Sample Code

Check the code below for a C# command line application that transforms Xml with Xsl.

Compile and run the application. Usage is as follows:

XmlTransformUtil.exe <xml file path> <xsl file path>
You could use the provided sampledoc.xml and sample.xsl to have a go at it. You should
see a 'result.html' in the same folder as the application with the results of the
transformation.
using System ;
using System.IO ;
using System.Xml ;
using System.Xml.Xsl ;
using System.Xml.XPath ;

public class XmlTransformUtil{

public static void Main(string[] args){

if (args.Length == 2){

Transform(args[0], args[1]) ;

}else{

PrintUsage() ;

public static void Transform(string sXmlPath, string sXslPath){

try{

//load the Xml doc

XPathDocument myXPathDoc = new XPathDocument(sXmlPath) ;

XslTransform myXslTrans = new XslTransform() ;

//load the Xsl

myXslTrans.Load(sXslPath) ;

//create the output stream

XmlTextWriter myWriter = new XmlTextWriter
("result.html", null);

//do the actual transform of Xml

myXslTrans.Transform(myXPathDoc,null, myWriter);

myWriter.Close() ;

}catch(Exception e){

Console.WriteLine("Exception: {0}", e.ToString());

}

public static void PrintUsage(){

Console.WriteLine
("Usage: XmlTransformUtil.exe <xml path> <xsl path>");
}