What are the benefits and challenges of generating XML and using XSLT in PHP for presenting data compared to traditional HTML output?

Generating XML and using XSLT in PHP for presenting data allows for better separation of content and presentation, making it easier to update the design without changing the underlying data. It also enables the reuse of XSL stylesheets for consistent formatting across multiple pages. However, there can be a learning curve for working with XSLT and it may not be as straightforward as traditional HTML output for some developers. 

// Sample PHP code to generate XML and apply XSLT transformation
$xml = new DOMDocument();
$xml->loadXML('<data><item>Item 1</item><item>Item 2</item></data>');

$xsl = new DOMDocument();
$xsl->load('stylesheet.xsl');

$proc = new XSLTProcessor();
$proc->importStylesheet($xsl);

echo $proc->transformToXML($xml);

Keywords

XML XSLT PHP data presentation HTML output

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