Comments on: XSL Transformation Issues

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 01:29:19 +0000

Server side XSLT processing always seems to work better for me, I find it more predictable and less of a strain on older clients.

By: Relapse

Relapse — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:16:26 +0000

Problem 2, I had a similar issue with Flash - I had to specify header(‘Content-type: text/xml’); at the start of the PHP script of an RSS dump or the Flash ticker got all confused.

Silly strict/ fluffy mime-type handling difference between FF/ Flash and IE…

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 21:10:12 +0000

Mark - I agree that Firefox is processing it correctly. However, when learning how to do something it is not evident that Firefox is processing it correctly, especially when all other options work. So even though the browser is doing it right, all of my frustration still gets pointed towards it :)

Also, the transformations have to be done on both the client and server for degradable Ajax.

Manuzhai - I'm only using XSL to change small areas of a page, without the page reloading. The initial page loads as normal php page, then when the user clicks certain things the content changes, and I'm pulling those changes in with JavaScript.

By: Manuzhai

Manuzhai — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:02:06 +0000

I meant the <?xml-stylesheet?> PI, actually.

By: Manuzhai

Manuzhai — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:01:12 +0000

Hmm, why don’t you just use the PI to do the client-side transformation instead of using the JavaScript?

By: Mark Newhouse

Mark Newhouse — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:57:50 +0000

Rather than using innerHTML, you could use createTextNode(string) with the string that is returned from IE, and then append that as a child.

As for Firefox requiring the modified header, that is as it should be. My guess is that IE is looking at the data and figuring out what it likely is, even when the header information doesn't match (it is being very liberal in what it accepts).

Firefox, on the other hand, is not so liberal. It sees a mismatch between what the server says it is sending (probably text/html since it is coming from a PHP file) and what it is receiving (XML) and throws an error.

Given these browser differences, and since JavaScript is never a given, it might make the most sense to do the transformation on the server side...

By: Sylvain

Sylvain — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:54:07 +0000

I like this post :)