XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.1

This specification defines the syntax and semantics of XSLT 2.1, a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents. XSLT 2.1 is a revised version of the XSLT 2.0 Recommendation published on 23 January 2007. The primary purpose of the changes in this version of the language is to enable transformations to be performed in streaming mode, where neither the source document nor the result document is ever held in memory in its entirety. XSLT 2.1 is designed to be used in conjunction with XPath 2.1, which is defined in XPath 2.1. XSLT shares the same data model as XPath 2.1, and it uses the library of functions and operators defined in Functions and Operators. XPath 2.1 and the underlying function library introduce a number of enhancements, for example the availability of higher-order functions. Some of the functions that were previously defined in the XSLT 2.0 specification, such as the format-date and format-number functions, are now defined in the standard function library to make them available to other host languages. XSLT 2.1 also includes optional facilities to serialize the results of a transformation, by means of an interface to the serialization component described in XSLT and XQuery Serialization. This document contains hyperlinks to specific sections or definitions within other documents in this family of specifications. These links are indicated visually by a superscript identifying the target specification: for example XP for XPath, DM for the XDM data model, FO for Functions and Operators.