What's so bad about xsl:for-each?

Question

I hear time and time again about how you should avoid the use of XSLT for-each. That it\'s your inner imperative programming demon that should be banished.

What\'s

Answer 1

It is the use of a for-each to call templates that is discouraged, not the widespread use of for-each, per se. Even the Muenchian method of grouping relies on xsl:key constructs with xsl:for-each loops.

The idea of writing good XSLT is that the structure of your XML should dictate what templates are matched and then applied. Therefore, whenever possible, use apply-templates to select the nodes, rather than applying a select using for-each.