use xslt to add newlines after attributes - xslt

Question

I am trying to transform XML that looks like:
<item attr1="value1" attr2="value2"><nestedItem attr1="value1" attr="value2"/></item>
To XML that looks like:
<item
attr1="value1"
attr2="value2">
<nestedItem
attr1="value1"
attr="value2"/>
</item>
I am working with a stylesheet:
<xsl:output method="xml" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template name="newline">
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">
</xsl:text>
</xsl:param>
<xsl:template match="#*|node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="text()|#*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="#*">
<xsl:attribute name="{name(.)}">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
I've tried calling my newline template from a few different places, but can't get newlines inserted between my attributes.
Thanks!

Answer 1

There is no support for the wanted serialization in XSLT 1.0 and 2.0 (and, to my knowledge, also in the forthcoming XSLT 3.0).
In case your XSLT processor allows serialization via a user-provided XmlWriter class, then you can implement such serialization.
For example, when using one or more specific overloads of the .NET XslCompiledTransform.Transform() method, one may pass as one of the arguments to the method, an instance of XmlWriter. Pass an instance of your own class that derives from XmlWriter.

Answer 2

The following template may not pretty and may not be best practice but it works for me. Give it a try. It will not output xmlns 'attributes' if there are any on the element.
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><</xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="name()"/><xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
<xsl:for-each select="#*">
<xsl:text> </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="concat(name(),'=' ,'"', . ,'"')" /><xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">>
</xsl:text>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"></</xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="name()"/><xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

Answer 3

When you use the Saxon serializer with indentation you can get output close to what you are looking for, but it might not be exactly what you want. If you're really fussy about the format then you will have to write your own serializer or adapt an existing one by tweaking the code. The usual philosophy in XML circles is that you shouldn't really care about distinctions that will be ignored once the data is parsed, and that includes things like the choice of quote character, the order of attributes, and the whitespace that separates attributes.