Re: [xsl] Re: Re: Creating an array

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2003-05-27 15:57 -0600, Alan Gardner wrote:
> The
> solution I need is a way to have random numbers but not duplicated numbers
> (the randomly generated number is associated with a link - which can't be
> duplicated or content on the web site will be redundant.

Why do they have to be random?

> So I'm back at the original question - how do I track what random numbers
> I've already generated so I can compare them using contains() or some string
> function.

What comparison are you looking for?

Are you looking for uniqueness across a single execution of the stylesheet 
producing a final result, or are you looking for uniqueness across a 
multiple number of executions of a stylesheet over many results?

If you can keep a "master number" and just use steadily incrementing 
values, then you won't have a problem with duplicates.  For comparison 
purposes, including non-digit name characters in your link identifiers, 
perhaps using ...,"_12_", "_13_", "_14_" will ensure there is no conflict 
with "_112_", "_113_", "_114" when using the contains() function (though 
I'm not really sure why you are focusing on the contains() function).

If you are obliged to use XSLT for everything, then you could even keep 
track of that master number in an XML file (an example is below; note how 
the master.xml file is incremented after every run of the stylesheet) ... 
but I don't think this is very elegant.

Perhaps if you described the problem you were trying to solve with your 
thought of using random numbers rather than trying to find a way of working 
with random numbers, we might be able to suggest an alternative solution to 
your problem.

I hope this helps.

................... Ken

t:\ftemp>type master.xml
<number>123</number>

t:\ftemp>type alan.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<test>
  <thing/>
  <thing/>
  <thing/>
  <thing/>
  <thing/>
</test>
t:\ftemp>type alan.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
                xmlns:saxon="http://icl.com/saxon";
                extension-element-prefixes="saxon"
                exclude-result-prefixes="saxon"
                version="1.0">

<xsl:template match="/">
  <xsl:variable name="start" select="number(document('master.xml')/number)"/>

  <result>
    <xsl:for-each select="/test/thing">
      <Hello/>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </result>

  <saxon:output href="master.xml">
    <number><xsl:value-of select="$start+count(/test/thing)"/></number>
  </saxon:output>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

t:\ftemp>saxon -o alan.out alan.xml alan.xsl

t:\ftemp>type master.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><number>128</number>
t:\ftemp>saxon -o alan.out alan.xml alan.xsl

t:\ftemp>type master.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><number>133</number>
t:\ftemp>


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G. Ken Holman                mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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