I have a C# application that generates an html document from transforming an xml file with an xsl file. In my xsl template I reference an external javascript file like this:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src=".3.2.min.js" ></script>

after the transformation the previous line is being translated to:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src=".3.2.min.js" />

For Firefox and Chrome this is no problem however IE throws an 'object not found' error and does not work. Any suggestions for getting IE to like this syntax? Or is there something I need to do in my xsl (or the C# XslCompiledTransform class) to preserve the syntax?

Solution: By placing <![CDATA[ <!-- Some Comment --> ]]> between the script tags the parser doesn't attempt to shorten the ending tag.

I have a C# application that generates an html document from transforming an xml file with an xsl file. In my xsl template I reference an external javascript file like this:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode./files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" ></script>

after the transformation the previous line is being translated to:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode./files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" />

For Firefox and Chrome this is no problem however IE throws an 'object not found' error and does not work. Any suggestions for getting IE to like this syntax? Or is there something I need to do in my xsl (or the C# XslCompiledTransform class) to preserve the syntax?

Solution: By placing <![CDATA[ <!-- Some Comment --> ]]> between the script tags the parser doesn't attempt to shorten the ending tag.

• javascript
• internet-explorer

• 2 Note that the "ment" inside CDATA is not a ment. It's text that will be fed to JS interpreter in the browser, and will likely be reported as a script error (try running it in IE, and look out for script error icon on the status bar). – Pavel Minaev Commented Oct 7, 2009 at 22:34
• Testing in IE8 I don't see any script errors, however would it be better to use a javascript '//' ment? – jwarzech Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 13:21
• Either do it with no CDATA content: <![CDATA[ ]]> or with a JavaScript ment: <![CDATA[ /* Some Comment */ ]]> – Alex Commented Oct 8, 2009 at 14:17
• If I'm not mistaken, the browser will parse the text from the file retrieved from the src attribute and will only parse the inner text of the tag if that file is not available (if at all). So that may be why you saw no errors when putting in text that is not syntactically JS. – illvm Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 17:06

7 Answers 7

Try putting an empty CDATA section inside. This should force the parser to not mess with your script tags.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode./files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" ><![CDATA[ ]]></script>

Actually, bobince is right. If you use...

<xsl:output method="html"/>

... you can get the right output for XslCompiledTransform, but you have to use its OutputSettings with the XmlWriter you use as output object:

XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform(true);

xslt.Load("stylesheetFile.xsl");

XmlWriter outputWriter = XmlWriter.Create("outputfile.html", xslt.OutputSettings);

xslt.Transform(input, null, outputWriter);

This way, the method="html" works, so script, textarea et al keep their closing tags.

Generate an XML ment inside <script>:

<script type="text/javascript" src="..." ><xsl:ment/></script>

The output will be:

<script type="text/javascript" src="..."><!-- --></script>

which is semantically equivalent to an empty <script>.

Not preserve it, but if you're producing backwards-patible HTML you need to tell the XSLT processor that HTML-patible-XHTML is what you want and not generic self-closing-allowed XML:

<xsl:output method="xhtml"/>

Unfortunately, the ‘xhtml’ output method is an XSLT 2.0 extension that .NET's XslTransform doesn't support, so you have to use good old legacy HTML instead:

<xsl:output method="html"/>

(and appropriate HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE instead of XHTML.)

Putting some dummy content in <script> may solve your immediate problem, but there may be other places where the default ‘xml’ output method will produce inappropriate markup for legacy browsers like IE.

Re: ment. Hmm... you're right! The ‘html’ output method does not produce valid HTML; the ‘xhtml’ output method does not produce XHTML conformant to XHTML Appendix C. What's more, ‘html’ includes provisions such as not escaping ‘<’, and de-escaping the ancient and broken-even-for-its-time Netscape 4 construct ‘&{...}’, that will take your working markup and make it invalid.

So changing the output method is pletely useless, and the only way to produce working HTML with XSLT is:

a. hack every occurrence of an inappropriate self-closing tag manually (there are likely to be many more than just this script), or

b. post-process with something like HTMLTidy.

How sad, and sloppy that this hasn't been addressed even in XSLT 2.0.

had the same prob. right now, this is my solution:

<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">
  <![CDATA[<script type="text/javascript" src="" ></script>]]>
</xsl:text>

Just Missing the closing </script>.

  <xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes" doctype-system="about:legacy-pat" encoding="utf-8"/>

should solve your probleme