xsl:copy

Causes the current XML node in the source document to be copied to the output. The actual effect depends on whether the node is an element, an attribute, or a text node.

Category: instruction
Content: sequence-constructor
Permitted parent elements: any XSLT element whose content model is sequence-constructor; any literal result element

Attributes

`select?`	`expression`	New in XSLT 3.0. Allows a node other than the context node to be copied. This is useful when the instruction appears inside xsl:function.
`copy-namespaces?`	`boolean`	Used only when copying element nodes. If the value is `yes` (the default), then all namespace nodes of the source element are copied as namespace nodes for the newly constructed element. If the value is `no`, then the namespace nodes are not copied.
`inherit-namespaces?`	`boolean`	Used only when copying element nodes. If the value is `yes` (the default), then the namespace nodes created for the newly constructed element are copied to its children and descendants. If the value is `no`, then these namespace nodes are not automatically copied.
`use-attribute-sets?`	`eqnames`	Used only when copying element nodes. Attributes of a generated element can be defined by reference to named attribute sets, provided as a whitespace-separated list. They are applied in the order given: if the same attribute is generated more than once, the later value always takes precedence.
`type?`	`eqname`	Requests validation of the constructed node against a specified XSD type. The value will typically be a user-defined complex type defined in an imported schema.
`validation?`	`"strict" \| "lax" \| "preserve" \| "strip"`	Requests strict or lax validation of the contents of the constructed node against the element declaration of its top-level element.

Saxon availability

Available in XSLT 1.0 and later versions. Available in all Saxon editions. Available for all platforms.

Notes on the Saxon implementation

Modivated by streaming, the on-empty attribute was introduced in an early Working Draft for XSLT 3.0, but later removed and replaced by the new xsl:on-empty, xsl:on-non-empty and xsl:where-populated instructions. The on-empty attribute was implemented in Saxon 9.5, but removed in 9.7.

Details

When xsl:copy is applied to an element node, the start and end element tags are copied; the attributes, character content and child elements are copied only if xsl:apply-templates is used within xsl:copy.

Examples

A template that copies the input element to the output, together with all its child elements, character content, and attributes:

<xsl:template match="*|text()|@*"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template>

Links to W3C specifications

XSLT 3.0 Specification