Re: [xsl] build-in template question

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

At 2008-09-05 00:25 +0200, Jonas Mellin wrote:
> Garvin Riensche wrote, On 2008-09-05 00:17:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have a question concerning text nodes. If I have an xml file like
> >
> > <root>
> >   <e>text</e>
> > </root>
> >
> > and a template like
> >
> > <xsl:template match="e">
> >   <xsl:copy/>
> > </xsl:template>
> >
> > than, the output will be "<e>text</e>".
> >
> > Is the text insterted to the output by xsl:copy or by the build-in template
> >
> > <xsl:template match="text()|@*">
> >   <xsl:value-of select="."/>
> > </xsl:template>
> > ?
> During evaluation of applicable templates on a particular node, the 
> most specific template is chosen.

This is not precisely true.

> If two or more templates is of the same level of specification, then 
> the template with the highest priority is chosen.

Yes, this is true, but the impact on priority by specificity is 
*very* limited and not quite as you say.

For example, the priority of all of the following templates are the 
same and all are in conflict for a document element named "x" that 
has both an attribute named "abc" and an attribute named "def":

  <xsl:template match="x[@abc]">

  <xsl:template match="x[@abc][@def]">

  <xsl:template match="/x">

I read the above three as having different specificity, yet they all 
have the same priority value of ".5".

> I have forgotten what happens if two templates cannot be separated 
> (a situaiton that I try to avoid), although a qualified guess is 
> that an XSLT 1.0 processor does something and an XSLT 2.0 processor 
> returns an error message.

Not sure what you are talking about here.

If you are trying to talk to the "union" operator (the vertical bar), 
this only tells the processor to treat the template severally across 
all of the unioned patterns as if each one were written out on its 
own with the identical template content.

> Anyway, in this case, the match="e" is more specifc than 
> match="text()|@*" so the first template is chosen.

Just to set the archive record straight, the match for an element is 
not in conflict with the match for a text node or an attribute node, 
so the XSLT principles of priority= and template conflict resolution 
don't even come into play.  The above quoted sentence is not true.

I hope this is considered helpful.

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

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