Editing XSL (section)

{{short description|XML stylesheet language}}
{{more footnotes|date=January 2014}}
In [[computing]], the term '''Extensible Stylesheet Language''' ('''XSL''') is used to refer to a family of languages used to transform and render [[XML]] documents (e.g., XSL is used to determine how to display a XML document as a webpage<ref>{{Cite web |title=XML and XSLT |url=https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_xslt.asp |url-status=live |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=W3schools}}</ref>).

Historically, the [[W3C]] XSL Working Group produced a draft specification under the name "XSL", which eventually split into three parts:

# XSL Transformation ([[XSLT]]): an [[XML]] language for transforming XML documents
# XSL Formatting Objects ([[XSL Formatting Objects|XSL-FO]]): an [[XML]] language for specifying the visual formatting of an XML document
# XML Path Language ([[XPath]]): a non-XML language used by XSLT, and also available for use in non-XSLT contexts, for addressing the parts of an XML document.

As a result, the term "XSL" is now used with a number of different meanings:

* Sometimes it refers to [[XSLT]]: this usage is best avoided. However, "xsl" is used both as the conventional namespace prefix for the XSLT namespace, and as the conventional filename suffix for files containing XSLT stylesheet modules
* Sometimes it refers to [[XSL-FO]]: this usage can be justified by the fact that the XSL-FO specification carries the title ''Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)''; however, the term XSL-FO is less likely to be misunderstood
* Sometimes it refers to both languages considered together, or to the working group that developed both languages
* Sometimes, especially in the Microsoft world, it refers to a now-obsolete variant of XSLT developed and shipped by Microsoft as part of [[MSXML]] before the W3C specification was finalized