RE: [xsl] XPath: excluding a descendant

Subject: RE: [xsl] XPath: excluding a descendant
From: "Michael Kay" <mhk@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 13:40:09 +0100

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Hahn, Andrea
> Sent: 02 September 2003 12:20
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [xsl] XPath: excluding a descendant
> 
> 
> Hello David and Michael, 
> 
> thanks for your answers and sorry for my bad explanation! I 
> am not sure if the empty template is really the way to go, 
> though, because the "everything else" is my problem. To 
> illustrate this a bit better: from the XML fragment below, I 
> want to create some "dump" output like "6.5.1995 Smith 
> somedescription Ireland 100.0" (just some example), but 
> excluding the "29.16" of <LongitudeDecimal>. All of the 
> elements are in the same namespace. So what I am casting 
> around for is how to form the predicate in a way that I get 
> any data from <Gathering> and below, except for that one. I 
> had been thinking that 
> <xsl:apply-templates 
> select="abcd:Gathering[not(.//*[self::abcd:LongitudeDecimal])]"/> 
> would be the way to go; but this snipps all the content from 
> the <Site> node and below as soon as a <LongitudeDecimal> 
> exists (which is optional), not just the <LongitudeDecimal> 
> element itself. I guess this is something really stupid, but 
> I don't seem to be able to solve it. Thanks for your patience!

You're misunderstanding how apply-templates works. If you do
apply-templates select="abcd:Gathering" then you select all the
abcd:Gathering elements that are children of the context node, and
process them. There's only one such node, and you want to modify the way
it is processed, not the way it is selected.

I don't understand why the empty template rule doesn't work for you. Is
it because there is another LongtudeDecimal element under
<somethingElse> that is to be processed differently? If that's the case,
either use modes, or write the rule as

<xsl:template match="Gathering//LongitudeDecimal"/>

Michael Kay

> 
> Andrea
> 
> 
> <TopNode>
>  <aLotOfStuff>
> 	<...>
>  </aLotOfStuff>
>  <Gathering>
>    <GatheringDate>
>      <DateText>6.5.1995</DateText>
>    </GatheringDate>
>    <Collectors>
>       <Collector>
>          <CollectorText>Smith</CollectorText>
>       </Collector>
>    </Collectors>
>    <Site>
>       <LocalityText>some description</LocalityText>
>       <Country>
>           <CountryName>Ireland</CountryName>
>       </Country>
> 	<CoordinateSets>
>         <Coordinates>
>           <LatLong>
>               <LongitudeDecimal>29.16</LongitudeDecimal>
>           </LatLong>
>         </Coordinates>
>       </CoordinateSets>
>       <Altitude>100.0</Altitude>
>     </Site>
>   </Gathering>
>   <somethingElse>
> 	<...>
>   </somethingElse>
> </TopNode>
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kay [mailto:mhk@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Dienstag, 2. September 2003 10:03
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [xsl] XPath: excluding a descendant
> 
> 
> > The aim:
> > For providing some quick-and-dirty html output, just making
> > sure all data are in there somehow, I want to "dump" all 
> > content below a certain node (not the root element) to the 
> > screen. There is, however, one sub-sub-sub-node whose 
> > contents I want to display on its own in a more structured 
> > way, and I do not want it duplicated in the dump. Following 
> > the suggestions I could find for selecting all children 
> > except for one in the FAQ I constructed this:
> > 
> > <xsl:apply-templates
> > select="abcd:Gathering[not(self::LongitudeDecimal)]"/>
> 
> This will process all the abcd:Gathering elements that are 
> not LongitudeDecimal elements. Of course, none of them are.
> 
> Without seeing the structure of your XML I find it difficult 
> to tell you the correct code.
> 
> But the simplest way of not processing a particular element (and its
> children/descendants) is to write an empty template rule for it:
> 
> <xsl:template match="LongitideDecimal"/>
> 
> Michael Kay
> 
> 
> > 
> > where Gathering is the top node for the dump, and
> > Gathering/GatheringSite/SiteCoordinates/LongitudeDecimal the 
> > one node I would want _not_ to display. This does not work at 
> > all, I guess because the element-to-exclude is not a child, 
> > but a descendant (?). If I change the line above to 
> > "...not(descendant::...", I get a different effect: not 
> > excepting the one element from the output, but just testing 
> > on presence of the node, with everything being displayed when 
> > "LongitudeDecimal" does not exist, but nothing when it does. 
> > How can I achieve to always display everything, always 
> > without the Longitude-content?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Andrea
> > 
> > 
> >  XSL-List info and archive:  
> http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> > 
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info 
> and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


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


Current Thread