---
title: "Berlioz Output"
source: https://dev.pageseeder.com/reference/advanced/website/berlioz/Berlioz_Output.html
last_updated: 2026-08-07T17:09:54+10:00
tokens: ~1038
---

# Berlioz output

Berlioz produces two types of output:

| Raw XML output | XML directly produced by Berlioz as a result of invoking the generators |
| --- | --- |
| Transformed output | Raw XML output that has been transformed for a particular output type |

## Raw XML output

Whenever a request is made, Berlioz always produces a response by:

1. Assembling the XML data produced by the generators.
2. Including a header with various metadata about the request.

The XML response follows the structure below:

```xml

<root>
  <!-- Only one header, always first -->
  <header> ... </header>
  <!-- for each generator for the service -->
  <content generator=[class] name="[name]" target="[]" status="[]">
    ...
  </content>
</root>
```

### XML header

The XML header returns information about the request and how Berlioz processed it. It is consistent and follows the structure below:

```xml

<header>
  <group>[service-group]</group>
  <service>[service-id]</service>
  <path-info>[path-info]</path-info>
  <context-path>[context-path]</context-path>
  <host>[host]</host>
  <port>[port]</port>
  <url>[request-url]</url>
  <query-string>[query-string]</query-string>
  <http-parameters>
    <!-- for each HTTP parameter -->
    <parameter name="[parameter-name]">[parameter-value]</parameter>
  </http-parameters>
  <uri-parameters>
    <!-- for each URI parameter -->
    <parameter name="[parameter-name]">[parameter-value]</parameter>
  </uri-parameters>
  <berlioz version="[berlioz-version]"/>
</header>
```

 

| service-group | The name of the group the service is part of |
| --- | --- |
| service-id | The ID of the service corresponding to the request |
| path-info | The Berlioz path information (normally corresponds to the \* in the \<url-pattern\> in the Web descriptor |
| context-path | The context path of the application (may be empty) |
| host | The host of the application server |
| port | The port of the application server |
| request-url | The request URL (without query string) |
| query-string | The query string (part after the ? as defined in HTTP spec) |
| parameter-name | The name of the HTTP or URI parameter |
| parameter-value | The value of the HTTP or URI parameter |
| berlioz-version | The version of Berlioz library in use |

### XML content

Each generator used by the service that processed the request is wrapped in the following XML:

```xml

<content generator=[generator-class] 
         name="[name]"
         target="[target]"
         status="[status]">
  <!-- The actual content depends on the generator -->
</content>
```

 

| generator-class | The full class name of the generator invoked by the service |
| --- | --- |
| name | The name given to this generator content as defined in the `services.xml` configuration file |
| target | The target for this generator content as defined in the`services.xml` configuration file |
| status | Indicates the status of the generator request; ‘ok’ if the generator could process the request without error; ‘error’ otherwise |

The actual XML content inside the `<content>` element is specific to each generator. Look at the generators API for details.

## Transformed output

Generally, Berlioz serves HTML or another output such as RSS, ICAL, etc.

The Berlioz servlet uses the style sheet as defined in the Web descriptor ( `/WEB-INF/web.xml` ) to transform the raw XML into the needed output.

By convention, the style sheet used by Berlioz is called `global.xsl`.

### Specifying the output type

The output type is specified in the XSLT style sheet using the `<xsl:output>` element.

The Berlioz servlet uses the attributes in this element to produce the correct HTTP headers.

For example, to produce an HTML 4 output:

```xml

<xsl:output method="html"
            encoding="utf-8"
            indent="yes"
            doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
            doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"
            undeclare-prefixes="no"/>
```

Or to produce a different XML:

```xml

<xsl:output method="xml"
            encoding="utf-8"
            indent="yes" 
            media-type="application/xml" />
```