XPath and XSLT Support

This feature is supported in the Ultimate edition only.

In this section:

• XPath and XSLT Support
  • Prerequisites
  • Overview
  • Changes to the UI
• XPath Expression Evaluation
• XPath Search
• XPath Expression Generation
• Plugin Settings
• XSLT Support

Prerequisites

Before you start working with XSLT, make sure that the XPath View+XSLT Support plugin is enabled. The plugin is bundled with IntelliJ IDEA and is activated by default. If the plugin is not activated, enable it on the Plugins page of the Settings / Preferences Dialog as described in Enabling and Disabling Plugins.

• XSLT support is available in all XML files that declare the XSLT-Namespace http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform on their root element.
• IntelliJ IDEA supports XSLT versions 1.0 and 2.0, XPath versions 1.0 and 2.0.
• An XSLT 2.0-capable processor (e.g. Saxon 9-HE) should be added to the classpath of a module that is used to run a stylesheet, and placed in front of JDK. See Order of dependencies.

Overview

The plugin lets you do the following:

• Evaluate expressions against the currently focused document, including support for the document() function to make cross-document queries
• Evaluate an expression against multiple XML documents in a Find in Path style way by the new Find by XPath action.

The Expression Evaluation dialog allows you to highlight matching expressions in the current editor or to open the Find tool window to display a list of matching lines. Editing XPath expressions is enhanced by on-the-fly error-checking including a set of customizable XPath Inspections and a wide range of code completion suggestions.

The plugin also offers a way to display a unique XPath expression for a selected element in an editor. This is available via View | Unique XPath in the Main Menu.

XSLT support is not limited to XPath expressions, it also supports a wide range of XSLT constructs, like checking the existence of templates that are called via xsl:call-template and their parameters, refactoring and navigation enhancements. Find out more about this in the XSLT Support section.

Changes to the UI

• XPath viewer settings
• XSLT settings
• XSLT run/debug configuration