RE: Checking for empty values

[Charles Cantrell <chc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In MSXML3, I was able to test for "emptiness" on the following XML file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml:stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="t.xsl"?>
<books>
  <book>
    <title>A Title</title>
    <author>Semour Basco</author>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title>Lost in Space</title>
    <author/>
  </book>
</books>

using 

<xsl:if test="not(node())">

I expect this test fails if there are comments or pi's.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: Madhu Menon [mailto:madhu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 5:22 AM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Checking for empty values


Hello.

Forgive me for asking newbie questions, but it's only because I'm a newbie
:)

I want to have my XSL stylesheet evaluate to see if a tag exists or the 
value is blank. How do I do this using <xsl:if> or <xsl:when> ?

For example, take the following schema:

<library>

<book>
	<name>Hound of the Baskervilles</name>
	<author>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle</author>
</book>


<book>
	<name>A Dying man's prayer</name>
</book>


<book>	
	<name>XSLT Programmer's Reference</name>
	<author>Michael Kay</author>
</book>

</library>

In the second record, the <author> data is not available. I want to check 
for this (or the tags being empty) and then conditionally produce the 
output. What would be the best way to do this?

Thanks for your help.

Madhu



 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list