Hi,

Those are named templates that do nothing when you call them.
They can be overwritten in a stylesheet that imports that stylesheet.

For instance if you have

a.xsl:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  version="1.0">
  <xsl:template name="a">in a</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>


and test.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  version="1.0">
  <xsl:import href="a.xsl"/>
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:call-template name="a"/>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

you will get "in a" as output.

But if you add an a template in test.xsl
<xsl:template name="a">a in test.xsl</xsl:template>
then you will get as output "a in test.xsl".

Best Regards,
George
---------------------------------------------------------------------
George Cristian Bina
<oXygen/> XML Editor, Schema Editor and XSLT Editor/Debugger
www.---.com

Brill2 wrote:
> Dear Guru's, please forgive the newbie question but I have a problem I
> can't seem to figure out.  I am supporting some old XSLT code and I see
> the following code everywhere :
>
>                <xsl:template name="left"/>
> 	<xsl:template name="middle">
> 		<xsl:call-template name="lixwelcom"/>
> 		<xsl:call-template name="lixlatnws"/>
> 		<xsl:call-template name="lislstreq"/>
> 		<xsl:if test="not($sec:group[@loc:id = 'LIBRARYSTAFF'])">
> 			<xsl:call-template name="lislstsub"/>
> 		</xsl:if>
> 	</xsl:template>
> 	<xsl:template name="right"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="../core/lixwelcom.xsl"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="../nws/lixlatnws.xsl"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="../req/lislstreq.xsl"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="../sub/lislstsub.xsl"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="../default.xsl"/>
>
> My problem is with the tags named :
> <xsl:template name="left"/>
> <xsl:template name="right"/>
>
> I understand what the tag <xsl:template name="middle"> is doing because
> it is defined, however the tags left and right are confusing the heck
> outta me.  I don't understand, if a template is undefined like that is
> it legal?  Or am I reading the syntax wrong and are these tags actually
> calling a template somewhere named left and right?
>
> Are they just placeholders?
>
> I really cant get my brain around this one.  Any help would be
> appreciated and maybe an explanation as to why someone would use xslt
> in this way.
> 
> Again thank you for your help
> Regards