Re: [xsl] [XSL] Using Sort and Position Function

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

At 2007-12-09 22:58 -0500, Alice Wei wrote:
>  I am trying to output HTML that sorts the items according to a 
> particular attribute, and then apply it using position() to display it.
>
> Here is my XML:
>
>    <application>
>                <ability rank="1">Adobe Acrobat Professional</ability>
>                <type>Graphic Design</type>
>            </application>
>            <application>
>                <ability rank="2">Ulead Video Studio</ability>
>                <type>Graphic Design</type>
>            </application>
>            <application>
>                <ability rank="2">Dreamweaver</ability>
>                <type>Graphic Design</type>
>            </application>
>                  <!--More code-->
>        </computer>
>
> The XSL:
>
>    <xsl:template match="application">
>        <xsl:for-each select=".">
>            <xsl:sort select="@rank" order="ascending"/>
>            <span>
>                <xsl:attribute name="title">
>                    <xsl:value-of select="type"/>
>                </xsl:attribute>
>                <xsl:value-of select="ability"/>
>            </span>
>            <xsl:choose>
>                <xsl:when test="position( ) !=last( )">, </xsl:when>
>                <xsl:otherwise><!--Don't display anything--></xsl:otherwise>
>            </xsl:choose>
>        </xsl:for-each>
>    </xsl:template>
>
> This stylesheet works.

This surprises me.  For example in the following:

   <xsl:template match="application">
       <xsl:for-each select=".">

... the <xsl:for-each> does nothing except to corrupt your position() value.

> The only problem is that I want the second to last to last element 
> to use and instead of a comma, and I tried putting it in the 
> <xsl:otherwise> tags. Didn't work as I thought, though.
>
> Anyone know how I fix this?
> Thanks in advance to any who could help.

I suspect you need something along the lines of the code below.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . . Ken

t:\ftemp>type alice.xml
<computer>

   <application>
               <ability rank="1">Adobe Acrobat Professional</ability>
               <type>Graphic Design</type>
           </application>
           <application>
               <ability rank="2">Ulead Video Studio</ability>
               <type>Graphic Design</type>
           </application>
           <application>
               <ability rank="2">Dreamweaver</ability>
               <type>Graphic Design</type>
           </application>
                 <!--More code-->
       </computer>

t:\ftemp>type alice.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
                version="1.0">

<xsl:output indent="yes"/>
<xsl:output method="text"/>

<xsl:template match="computer">
  <xsl:apply-templates select="application">
    <xsl:sort select="@rank" order="ascending"/>
  </xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="application">
  <span>
    <xsl:attribute name="title">
      <xsl:value-of select="type"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:value-of select="ability"/>
  </span>
  <xsl:if test="position( ) !=last( )">, </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
t:\ftemp>xslt alice.xml alice.xsl con
Adobe Acrobat Professional, Ulead Video Studio, Dreamweaver
t:\ftemp>





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