Introduction

XPathScript is a stylesheet language for translating XML files into some other format. It has only a few features, but by combining those features with the power and flexibility of Perl, XPathScript is a very capable system. Like all XML stylesheet languages, including XSLT, an XPathScript stylesheet is always executed in the context of a source XML file. In many cases the source XML file will actually define what stylesheets to use via the <?xml-stylesheet?> processing instruction.

XPathScript was concieved as part of AxKit - an application server environment for Apache servers running mod_perl (XML.com ran my Introduction to AxKit article in May). Its primary goal was to achieve the sorts of transformations that XSLT can do, without being restricted by XSLT's XML based syntax, and to provide full programming facilities within that environment. I also wanted XPathScript to be completely agnostic about output formats, without having to program in special after-effect filters. The result is a language for server-side transformation that provides the power and flexibility of XSLT combined with the full capabilities of the Perl language, and the ability to produce stylesheets in any ASP capable editor or ordinary text editor. The above Introduction to AxKit is recommended reading before reading this guide.