Skip to content
Tutorial Reference

XSLT <xsl:for-each>

How to use the XSLT <xsl:for-each> element to iterate through node sets in XML transformations, with syntax, attributes, and practical examples.

XSLT <xsl:for-each>

The <xsl:for-each> element loops through each node in a specified node set.

Syntax

<xsl:for-each select="expression">
	<!-- Content -->
</xsl:for-each>

Attributes

Attribute Value Required/Optional Description
select expression Required An XPath expression that specifies which node set to be processed.

Example

For the following examples, consider the XML document about a bookstore shown below:

books.xmlxml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books.xsl"?>

<bookstore>
	<book category="children">
		<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
		<author>J K. Rowling</author>
		<year>2005</year>
		<price>29.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="web">
		<title lang="en">XQuery Tips</title>
		<author>Tom Nolan</author>
		<year>2022</year>
		<price>39.99</price>
	</book>
	<book category="web">
		<title lang="en">Learn XML</title>
		<author>Tutorial Reference</author>
		<year>2022</year>
		<price>9.99</price>
	</book>
</bookstore>

Example 1

The example below loops trough each book element outputs the title for each book:

books.xslxml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
  <div>
    <xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">
      <p><xsl:value-of select="title" /></p>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </div>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Example 2

The example below loops trough each book element and creates a table row with the values from title and author for each book:

books.xslxml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
  <body>
    <h1>The Bookstore</h1>
    <table border="1">
      <tr bgcolor="#6565d5">
        <th>Title</th>
        <th>Author</th>
      </tr>
      <xsl:for-each select="bookstore/book">
      <tr>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="title" /></td>
        <td><xsl:value-of select="author" /></td>
      </tr>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </table>
  </body>
  </html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
Navigation