Re: Is self() an attribute or element?

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

At 99/10/15 14:58 -0400, Clark C. Evans wrote:
> I have a template that is called
> to do default processing for a
> particular node.  I'd like to
> be able to tell if the node is
> an attribute or element node.
> Any ideas?

This turns out to be not straightforward in the general case ... though the 
need to do such a test in the general case is not typical for formatting, 
so I'm not disappointed at the design of XSLT.

When doing transformation for the purposes of formatting, I would posit 
there is very rarely a need to do this kind of test.  When would formatting 
content require similar processing on *every* kind of node?

See my prior post for a simple true/false of "am I an element?" which would 
handle most of the needs.

Remember from the XSLT abstract: "XSLT is not intended as a completely 
general-purpose XML transformation language."  So not supporting such a 
function is not to the detriment of the objective as stated.

The one kind of function that can be executed on any node is the 
generate-id() function, so I would approach it as follows.

Can anyone think of a more concise approach?

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



T:\clark>type partlist.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--start-->
<part-list><part-name part-nbr="A123">bolt</part-name>
<part-name part-nbr="B456">washer</part-name><warning type="ignore"/>
<!--end of parts--><?cursor blinking?>
</part-list>
T:\clark>type shownode.xsl
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [<!ENTITY nl "&#xd;&#xa;">]>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
                version="1.0">

<xsl:output method="text"/>

<xsl:template match="text()|@*"/>

<xsl:template match="/|*|@*|processing-instruction()|
                     comment()|text()">
  <xsl:variable name="this-node" select="generate-id(.)"/>
  <xsl:variable name="this-type">
    <xsl:for-each select="../*">
      <xsl:if test="generate-id(.)=$this-node">Element</xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:for-each select="../@*">
      <xsl:if test="generate-id(.)=$this-node">Attribute</xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:for-each select="../processing-instruction()">
      <xsl:if test="generate-id(.)=$this-node">PI</xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:for-each select="../comment()">
      <xsl:if test="generate-id(.)=$this-node">Comment</xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:for-each select="../text()">
      <xsl:if test="generate-id(.)=$this-node">Text</xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:if test="not(..)">
      <xsl:text>Root</xsl:text>
    </xsl:if>
  </xsl:variable>
  <xsl:text>&nl;Node </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="name(.)"/>
  <xsl:text> is a node of type: </xsl:text>
  <xsl:value-of select="$this-type"/>
  <xsl:if test="string($this-type)='Attribute'">
    <xsl:text> (BINGO!! Found an attribute)</xsl:text>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|processing-instruction()|
                               comment()|text()"/>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
T:\clark>xt partlist.xml shownode.xsl

Node  is a node of type: Root
Node  is a node of type: Comment
Node part-list is a node of type: Element
Node part-name is a node of type: Element
Node part-nbr is a node of type: Attribute (BINGO!! Found an attribute)
Node  is a node of type: Text
Node  is a node of type: Text
Node part-name is a node of type: Element
Node part-nbr is a node of type: Attribute (BINGO!! Found an attribute)
Node  is a node of type: Text
Node warning is a node of type: Element
Node type is a node of type: Attribute (BINGO!! Found an attribute)
Node  is a node of type: Text
Node  is a node of type: Comment
Node cursor is a node of type: PI
Node  is a node of type: Text
T:\clark>



--
G. Ken Holman                    mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crane Softwrights Ltd.             http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0   +1(613)489-0999   (Fax:-0995)
Web site: XSL/XML/DSSSL/SGML services, training, libraries, products.
Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath      ISBN 1-894049-02-0
Next instructor-led training:  1999-11-08, 1999-11-09, 1999-12-05/06,
                             1999-12-07, 2000-02-27/28, 2000-05-11/12


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