XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) is the formatting language of choice for constructing dynamic WWW pages from XML documents. Thus, an XSL stylesheet is a "natural" complement to an XML document. Whereas XML describes the structure of information in a document, XSL describes the appearance of that data on a Web page.
Actually, XSL is more general and more powerful than this, since it can be used to transform an XML document into a document with an arbitrary set of tagging conventions. However, in the current context, consideration will be limited to transforming XML into HTML.
The definitive specification is that published by W3C. There are also numerous on-line articles and tutorials dealing with XSL. Don R. Day's "Hands-on XSL" is an excellent tutorial that provides a very clear explanation, along with a useful paper exercise, of exactly what goes on when an XML documents is merged with an XSL stylesheet to produce HTML or some other form of transformed output. Another that seems particularly effective is offered by the Zvon Group. It offers in a single multi-column page a brief description of an XSL construct, an example XML source document, an XSL stylesheet thatuses the construct, the generated HTML output, as well as a rendering of the HTML. More traditional tutorials include a chapter on XSL from the XML Bible that can be accessed online from ibilio and another from xml101. And, of course, there are several published books on the subject. One that I have found helpful is XSLT: Working with XML and HTML by Khun Yee Fung (Addison-Wesley, 2001).
Resources
Working with XML requires several different kinds of tools, ranging from stand-alone parsers and translators to Java packages and engines that can be incorporated into specialized applications. The discussion reviews several options and outlines steps to set up a simple test environment.
XSL Framework
A description of the basic framework for an XSL stylesheet.
XSL Root Template
A template that matches the XML document root starts the whole process.
Creating a Simple Form Using XML/XSL
A simple form will drive this discussion. Here, the form is discussed, first in HTML, and then in XSL
XSL Quick Start
An example-driven introduction to the more commonly used elements in XSL.
XML/XSL Fast Prototype Architecture
An architecture for creating user interface components and stub interactions, using a servlet for Control and XML/XSL for View.