See http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#element-param
As an alternative, you may want to use
<xsl:variable name="permission" select="''"/>
And test later on if the string is empty or not.
HTH,
<prs/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Koberg [mailto:rob@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 3:16 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [xsl] top level xsl:param confusion
Hi,
I have a top level param like so:
<xsl:param name="permission" select="false()"/>
Main Question:
Is the above top level xsl:param considered false even if it was passed an
empty string? I would expect it to be false only if the param was
*not* passed.
More info:
I send the param down to the transformation if a user has access to the
filesystem otherwise it is not sent. And if they have access I send the path
that they are restricted to as the value. Some example values are:
"" -- full project access
"foo" -- access restricted to the 'foo' folder "foo/bar" -- access
restricted to the 'foo/bar' folder
If they have no restriction I want the param value to be 'false()'
The problem (or my misunderstanding) is when I pass down the empty string
value - "". So the transformation sees there is a
/xsl:stylesheet/xsl:param[@name='permission'] - so it should not evaluate to
false(), right? However, it does in both Xalan and Saxon (the only two I
tried). I don't see anything in the spec that addresses this.
For example, the following chooses the otherwise when the param is sent to
the transformation as an empty string.
<xsl:choose>
<!--<xsl:when test="boolean($permission)"> or -->
<xsl:when test="$permission">
<!-- allow access -->
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- no access -->
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
thanks for any clarification,
-Rob