DVSL (Declarative Velocity Style Language) is a tool modeled after XSLT and is intended for general XML transformations. The key differences are that it incorporates easy access to Java objects and allows you to use the Velocity template language and it's features for expresing the transformation templates.

Similarities to XSLT

DVSL steals two of the best features of XSLT:

• It uses a declarative syntax like XSLT.
• Document control and selection is based on XPath.

Differences From XSLT

DVSL differs from XSLT in a few ways

• DVSL's template language is Velocity, so conventional Velocity syntax is used to get and set data, to perform looping and flow control, etc. All features of VTL are available.
• Because DVSL is based on Velocity, it offers a very tight binding to Java objects. This means that it's easy to access other data sources from within the DVSL stylesheet, using conventional method call syntax, allowing you to integrate, collect, and transform with and to outside data like databases, calculation libraries, etc
• DVSL also allows the creation of 'dynamic stylesheets' - ones whose matching rules can be altered as a group. (see examples)

The current status is best described as 'post experiemental', where the basic test of styling it's own documentation (this that you are now reading) without resorting to ugly hacks and kludges has been passed.

The code is still very primitive (and downright embarassing in places...), and the object model (from the template POV) is still crystalizing, and no performance work has been done.

Nightly snapshots of the DVSL CVS are available here.

Access to the DVSL CVS repository is available :

• Online via ViewCVS in your browser.
• Using a cvs client