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XSLT processing quirk

By On Tue, Dec 4th, 2007 In Programming With 2 Comments Permanent Link to XSLT processing quirkPermalink

This week I encountered, for the second time in recent weeks, a very ugly XSLT quirk. I can’t call it a bug, as I’m relatively new to XSL, but it sure irks me very much. Continue reading, it might save you some sanity.
I must lead you to full page, as the code example can’t feet in the home page space.

Take a look at this lovely login form, in IE6 (same in IE7):

Screenshot from IE, with bug shown

It’s caused by this XSLT code:

PLAIN TEXT
XML: 
    

  1. 

    <input type="submit">
    

    2. 

  2. 

    						<xsl:attribute name="value">
    

    3. 

  3. 

    							Login
    

    4. 

  4. 

    						</xsl:attribute>
    

    5. 

  5. 

    </input> 
    

    6.

The value attribute is not just Login, but also all the white characters around it, most notably tabs. When written as this:

PLAIN TEXT
XML: 
    

  1. 

    <input type="submit">
    

    2. 

  2. 

    						<xsl:attribute name="value">Login</xsl:attribute>
    

    3. 

  3. 

    </input> 
    

    4.

all looks ok:

Screenshot from IE, with bug prevented

XSLT is slowly killing me…

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2 Comments

Feel free to chime in, looking forward to it. Leave a Comment

  1. Dejan Vesić says:
    Tue, Dec 4th, 2007 at 15:07 ·

    Well, XSLT is ugliest of all scripting languages — it is so ugly that is should not be called language.

    Even old ASP is better.

  2. sam says:
    Wed, Dec 12th, 2007 at 12:58 ·

    here is something for you i found very usefull for controlling xsl behaviour toward whitespace:

    http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/11/07/whitespace.html

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