xsl:element

Description

xsl:element generates an element in the output whose tag name is determined at transformation time, not written literally in the stylesheet. The name attribute is an attribute value template (curly-brace expressions are evaluated and substituted), so it can incorporate source-document data, variable values, or any XPath expression.

When you know the element name in advance, you simply write the literal element directly in the stylesheet — for example <result>...</result>. xsl:element is only necessary when the element name must be computed dynamically.

The content of xsl:element is a template body: any XSLT instructions and literal result elements placed inside become the children and attributes of the generated element. Attributes must be added before any child elements; the typical pattern is to emit xsl:attribute children first, then content.

Attributes

Examples

Element name from source data

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<fields>
  <field name="username" value="alice"/>
  <field name="email" value="alice@example.com"/>
  <field name="role" value="admin"/>
</fields>

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="/fields">
    <user>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="field"/>
    </user>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="field">
    <xsl:element name="{@name}">
      <xsl:value-of select="@value"/>
    </xsl:element>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<user>
  <username>alice</username>
  <email>alice@example.com</email>
  <role>admin</role>
</user>

Computing element name from a variable

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<items>
  <item type="product">Widget</item>
  <item type="service">Support</item>
</items>

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="/items">
    <catalog>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="item"/>
    </catalog>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="item">
    <xsl:variable name="tag" select="@type"/>
    <xsl:element name="{$tag}">
      <xsl:attribute name="label"><xsl:value-of select="."/></xsl:attribute>
    </xsl:element>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<catalog>
  <product label="Widget"/>
  <service label="Support"/>
</catalog>

Notes

• If the computed name is not a valid XML QName, most processors raise an error. Validate source data or use xsl:choose to guard against invalid names.
• xsl:attribute children of xsl:element must appear before any non-attribute content (text, child elements). Placing them after content is an error.
• The namespace attribute overrides the namespace implied by any prefix in the name value. If name has a prefix but no namespace is provided, the prefix must be bound in the stylesheet’s in-scope namespaces.
• In XSLT 2.0+, xsl:element also accepts an inherit-namespaces attribute to control whether namespace nodes are inherited by child elements.

See also

• xsl:attribute
• xsl:attribute-set
• xsl:copy