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XSLTProcessor: transformToDocument() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

The transformToDocument() method of the XSLTProcessor interface transforms the provided Node source to a Document using the XSLT stylesheet associated with XSLTProcessor.

Syntax

transformToDocument(source)

Parameters

source: The Node source to apply the XSLT stylesheet to.

Return value

A Document. The actual interface depends on the output method of the stylesheet, as specified by <xsl:output> element's method.

Output method	Result interface
`html`	`HTMLDocument`
`xml`	`XMLDocument`
`text`	`XMLDocument` with a single root element `<transformiix:result>` with the text as a child

Examples

Using transformToDocument()

This example demonstrates how to use transformToDocument() to transform an XML document using XSLT, resulting in a new XML document structure.

HTML

<pre id="result"></pre>

JavaScript

const xmlString = `
<books>
  <book>
    <title>Book 1</title>
    <author>Author 1</author>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title>Book 2</title>
    <author>Author 2</author>
  </book>
</books>
`;

const xsltString = `
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <catalog>
      <xsl:for-each select="books/book">
        <item>
          <name><xsl:value-of select="title"/></name>
          <writer><xsl:value-of select="author"/></writer>
        </item>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </catalog>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
`;

const parser = new DOMParser();
const xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(xmlString, "application/xml");
const xsltDoc = parser.parseFromString(xsltString, "application/xml");

const xsltProcessor = new XSLTProcessor();
xsltProcessor.importStylesheet(xsltDoc);

// Perform the transformation, returning the result as a new XML document
const resultDoc = xsltProcessor.transformToDocument(xmlDoc);

// Serialize the result document to a string
const serializer = new XMLSerializer();
const resultString = serializer.serializeToString(resultDoc);

// Display the transformed XML in the page
document.getElementById("result").textContent = resultString;

Result

Specifications

Specification
DOM> # dom-xsltprocessor-transformtodocument>

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android	WebView on iOS
`transformToDocument`	1 Chrome returns `null` if an error occurs.	12 Edge returns `null` if an error occurs.	1 Firefox throws an exception if an error occurs.	≤12.1 ["Opera 12.1 and earlier throws an exception if an error occurs.", "Opera 15 and later returns `null` if an error occurs."]	3.1 Safari returns `null` if an error occurs.	18 Chrome Android returns `null` if an error occurs.	4 Firefox for Android throws an exception if an error occurs.	≤12.1 ["Opera Android 12.1 and earlier throws an exception if an error occurs.", "Opera Android 14 and later returns `null` if an error occurs."]	2 Safari on iOS returns `null` if an error occurs.	1.0 Samsung Internet returns `null` if an error occurs.	3 WebView returns `null` if an error occurs.	2 WebView on iOS returns `null` if an error occurs.