local-name()

Description

local-name() returns the local part of a node’s name — that is, the part of the qualified name after the colon, or the full name if no prefix is present. For example, a node named xhtml:div has a local name of div.

When called without an argument, it returns the local name of the context node. When called with a node-set argument, it returns the local name of the first node in the node-set in document order. For nodes without an expanded name (such as text nodes, comments, and processing instructions with no target), the function returns the empty string "".

local-name() is useful when writing stylesheets that must process elements regardless of the namespace prefix used, or when generating output where you want to replicate element names without their prefix.

Parameters

Return value

xs:string — the local part of the node’s name, or "" for nodes with no name.

Examples

Print the local name of each element

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root xmlns:ns="http://example.com/ns">
  <ns:title>Main Title</ns:title>
  <ns:body>Body content</ns:body>
  <plain>Plain element</plain>
</root>

Stylesheet:

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

  <xsl:template match="/root">
    <names>
      <xsl:for-each select="*">
        <item local="{local-name()}" qualified="{name()}"/>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </names>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<names>
  <item local="title" qualified="ns:title"/>
  <item local="body" qualified="ns:body"/>
  <item local="plain" qualified="plain"/>
</names>

Generic copy stripping namespace prefixes

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data xmlns:d="http://example.com/data">
  <d:record>
    <d:field>Value</d:field>
  </d:record>
</data>

Stylesheet:

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

  <xsl:template match="*">
    <xsl:element name="{local-name()}">
      <xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
    </xsl:element>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="@*">
    <xsl:attribute name="{local-name()}">
      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </xsl:attribute>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<data>
  <record>
    <field>Value</field>
  </record>
</data>

Notes

• For element and attribute nodes, local-name() returns the NCName portion after the colon. For unprefixed elements, the local name equals the qualified name.
• For text nodes, comment nodes, and document nodes, local-name() returns "".
• Processing instruction nodes return the PI target as their local name.
• local-name() and name() return the same value for nodes with no namespace prefix.
• In XSLT 2.0+, fn:local-name() is unchanged but also accepts a single node as argument (not a node-set); passing more than one node is an error.

See also

• name()
• namespace-uri()