Subject: Re: [xsl] How to calculate column number of the entry? From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 12:30:34 -0400 |
Toshihiko Makita wrote: > I am developing DocBook table to XSL-FO stylesheet. It is not > specialized for specific user use. It should be a general stylesheet.
Wow... you are taking on by far the most complicated kind of markup in DocBook.
I would very, very strongly recommend using the DocBook XSL stylesheets as a starting point. Even if you donbt use any of their transformations, there is a large library of utility functions contained in them for doing things like figuring out table cell column numbers, alignment, etc.
On the other hand, TMK these have not been done in XSLT 2.0, and the XSLT 1.0 Docbook table code is necessarily something of a tour-de-force. XSLT 1.0 was just not designed to make this sort of thing easy.
A set of XSLT 2.0 OASIS/CALS/Docbook table modules would be a fine thing, if the community could share.
As for the question, the trick is in defining the specification. The table model is complex to implement, and most implementations (in my experience) don't do the entire thing. Makita-san's description appears to be fairly complete:
1. The table columns are described with colspec element like follows:
<colspec colname="col1" colwidth="1*"/> <colspec colname="col2" colwidth="2*" align="right"/> <colspec colname="col3" colwidth="2*"/>
2. Usually XSL-FO property is inherited from fo:table-and-caption ==> fo:table ==> fo:table-header, fo:table-footer, fo:table-body ==> fo:table-row ==> fo:table-cell. However I want to apply colspec/@align attribute using from-table-column() function to fo:table-cell *only* when it is defined in colspec element. In the above example, I want to apply text-align="right" to the fo:table-cell only when its column number is 2.
<fo:table-cell text-align="from-table-column()"> ... </fo:table-cell)
3. To know colspec/@align is defined or not in colspec, it is necessary to know what column number current entry is. The entry element defines colname, namest or spanname attribute. If one of them is specified, the stylesheet can calculate column number from the attribute value. But these attributes are not mandatory.
4. If above attributes are not defined in the entry element, the stylesheet must calculate the column number by itself. I think it is easy when the table has no row spans. If there are row spans, it may be impossible for stylesheet to calculate the correct column number.
Using XSLT 2.0, I would take the approach of a function that would return the column number, or perhaps even better the proper 'colspec' element itself, falling back from one to the next of the means described.
I don't think even 4 is impossible, if a column number can be defined as 1 + the sum of all the column spans on preceding sibling cells, falling back to 1 when colspan is not defined:
where the function t:colspan() returns the column span for the cell. This is defined on the cell, or if not by means of colspecs when available, or as 1 by default.
Indeed, this is effectively what the 1.0 Docbook stylesheets do, except that named templates returning result-tree-fragments have to be used instead of actual functions.
Another nice thing offered by this function library would be a set of assertions (XSLT or Schematron) that could check whether a table were "square" (rows all the same length).
Cheers, Wendell
====================================================================== Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com 17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635 Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631 Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML ======================================================================
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