How to Remove the Top 2 Elements and Namespace from XML Using XSLT

Описание: A step-by-step guide on how to effectively remove the top two elements and namespaces from your XML document using a single XSLT transformation.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/63578294/ asked by the user 'Abinash Nanda' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/3852287/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/63578883/ provided by the user 'lab9' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13667178/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Remove the Top 2 Elements and Namespace from XML Using XSLT

XML transformation can often seem daunting, especially when you're required to modify complex documents. In this guide, we will tackle a specific challenge: removing the top two elements of an XML document along with their namespaces using XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations). This process can be a bit tricky, but with the right approach, it can be simplified greatly.

The Problem

Consider the following XML structure you may encounter in a project:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The goal here is to transform this XML into a simpler format by removing the ns9:Messages and ns9:Message1 elements and their associated namespaces, leaving us with just the data inside the ZCOD_SERVICE_CONFIRMATION02 element. The desired output should look like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The Solution

To accomplish this using a single XSLT transformation, the following approach can be applied. It is essential to ensure that we specify the correct namespaces and create a template that copies only the relevant nodes.

Step-by-Step XSLT Code

Below is the XSLT code that you would use to perform the transformation:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation of the Code

Namespace Handling: The xmlns:ns9 declaration at the top of the stylesheet allows you to reference the namespace used in your XML document. It is crucial to include this for XSLT to understand the structure of the input XML.

Excluding Output Prefixes: The exclude-result-prefixes="ns9" in the <xsl:output> ensures that the ns9 namespace prefix is not included in the resulting XML.

Template Matching: The template <xsl:template match="/"> indicates that we want to perform our transformations starting from the root of the XML document.

Copying Nodes: The <xsl:copy-of> element with copy-namespaces="no" copies all the relevant nodes that are children of ns9:Message1 without carrying over the namespaces.

Conclusion

With the XSLT code provided, you can effectively remove the top two elements from your XML structure along with their namespaces in one go. This method is not only efficient but also reduces complexity, making it easier to manage your XML data.

If you have any further questions or face difficulties while implementing this solution, feel free to ask! Happy coding!