title: XSLT management - attaching metadata to a stylesheet for output and parameters
body: <p>I am using about a dozen XSLT files to provide a large number of output formats. At the moment the user has to know the extension of the file format being exported to e.g. RTF, HTML, TXT.</p>
  
  <p>I would also like to use parameters to allow more options.  If I can embed the metadata in the XSL file itself then I can pick up the details by scanning through the files.</p>
  
  <p>Here is what I am thinking about. In this example the program would have to parse the comments for the required information.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
  &lt;!-- Title: Export to Rich Text Format --&gt;
  &lt;!-- Description: This Stylesheet converts to a Rich Text Format format which may be used in a word processor such as Word --&gt;
  &lt;!-- FileFormat: RTF --&gt;
  &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"&gt;
  &lt;xsl:param name="CompanyName"/&gt; &lt;!-- Format:String, Description: Company name to be inserted in the footer --&gt;
  &lt;xsl:param name="DateDue"/&gt; &lt;!-- Format:Date-yyyy-mm-dd, Description: Date Due --&gt;
  &lt;xsl:param name="IncludePicture"&gt;true&lt;/xsl:param&gt;&lt;!-- Format:Boolean, Description: Do you want to include a graphical representation? --&gt;
    &lt;xsl:template match="/"&gt;
    &lt;!-- Stuff --&gt;
    &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
  &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Are there any standards out there? Do I need to butcher more than one (Dublin Core with a smattering of XML Schema)?</p>
  
  <p>P.S. the project this is being applied to is <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/argumentative/" rel="noreferrer">Argumentative</a>.</p>