XSLT Reference

xsl:result-document

XSLT 2.0 element

Writes transformation output to a secondary result document at a specified URI, enabling a single stylesheet to produce multiple output files.

Syntax

<xsl:result-document href="uri" method="xml" indent="yes">

Description

xsl:result-document creates a secondary result tree and writes it to a URI. The primary output of the transformation is produced normally; xsl:result-document adds one or more additional outputs. This is the XSLT 2.0 mechanism for splitting a single input document into multiple output files — for example, generating one HTML page per chapter of a book.

The href attribute names the destination URI. Relative URIs are resolved against the base output URI supplied by the calling application. If href is omitted, the instruction writes to the principal result tree (useful to override serialization settings for a section of output).

All serialization attributes available on xsl:output may also appear directly on xsl:result-document and override the named output format for that specific document.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`href`	URI (AVT)	No	Destination URI for the secondary document.
`format`	QName	No	Named output format (refers to an `xsl:output` name attribute).
`method`	`xml` \| `html` \| `text` \| `xhtml`	No	Serialization method.
`indent`	`yes` \| `no`	No	Whether to add indentation.
`encoding`	string	No	Character encoding, e.g. `UTF-8`.
`doctype-public`	string	No	DOCTYPE public identifier.
`doctype-system`	string	No	DOCTYPE system identifier.
`omit-xml-declaration`	`yes` \| `no`	No	Suppress the XML declaration.
`use-character-maps`	QNames	No	Apply named character maps on output.

Return value

Nothing is added to the current result tree. The content produced inside the element body is written to the secondary document.

Examples

Splitting chapters into separate files

Input XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<book title="My Book">
  <chapter id="ch1" title="Introduction">Content of chapter 1.</chapter>
  <chapter id="ch2" title="Background">Content of chapter 2.</chapter>
  <chapter id="ch3" title="Conclusion">Content of chapter 3.</chapter>
</book>

Stylesheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="/book">
    <!-- Primary output: index page -->
    <html>
      <body>
        <h1><xsl:value-of select="@title"/></h1>
        <ul>
          <xsl:for-each select="chapter">
            <li><a href="{@id}.html"><xsl:value-of select="@title"/></a></li>
          </xsl:for-each>
        </ul>
      </body>
    </html>
    <!-- Secondary outputs: one file per chapter -->
    <xsl:for-each select="chapter">
      <xsl:result-document href="{@id}.html" method="html" indent="yes">
        <html>
          <body>
            <h1><xsl:value-of select="@title"/></h1>
            <p><xsl:value-of select="."/></p>
            <a href="index.html">Back</a>
          </body>
        </html>
      </xsl:result-document>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Files produced: index.html, ch1.html, ch2.html, ch3.html.

Writing a plain-text log alongside XML output