RE: [xsl] Anyway to avoid a syntax error when matching with a regex containing both '&quot for example ['"](.*?)["']

["Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In XSLT 2.0 the rule is:

* the delimiter of the XML attribute can be escaped as & quot; or & apos;
respectively

* the delimiter of the string literal can be escaped by doubling it.

However, a simpler approach is often to put the regex in a variable:

<xsl:variable name="regex" as="xs:string">['"](.*?)["']</xsl:variable>

<xsl:value-of select="matches(, $regex)"/>

This way, neither quotes nor apostrophes need to be escaped.

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Muir [mailto:alex.g.muir@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 08 October 2009 12:45
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [xsl] Anyway to avoid a syntax error when matching 
> with a regex containing both &apos;&quot for example ['"](.*?)["']
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Is there any way to avoid a syntax error with a regex 
> containing  both &apos;&quot for example ['"](.*?)["'] in the 
> following select.
> 
> <xsl:value-of select="matches(., 
> '[&apos;&quot;](.*?)[&quot;&apos;]')"/>
> 
> 
> Working with Oxygen 10.3, F [Saxon-B 9.1.0.7] I'll get an 
> XPath syntax error at char 14 on line 44 in {matches(., 
> '['"](.*?)["']'}:
>     expected ")", found "<string-literal>"
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure this is an easy question but I wasn't able to find 
> the right Google search to answer it.
> Thanks
> -- 
> 
> Alex
> https://sites.google.com/a/utg.edu.gm/alex