Re: [xsl] Grouping conditions

Subject: Re: [xsl] Grouping conditions
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 11:58:56 -0500
At 03:55 AM 2/7/02, Joerg wrote:
> Is there a way doing something like:
> <xsl:choose>
>   <xsl:when test="@type='101'|'102'|'103'|'104'...">
> ..
> </xsl:choose>
>
> If this is not possible, is there another way of achieving the same
result?
> There are many values that - in this part of the stylesheet - yields the
> same function, so it is quite cumbersome writing all those "or @type=".

No, it's not possible. We had it already yesterday. '|' means UNION on
nodesets, 'or' means OR. But @type='101' is no nodeset.

Joerg is correct, but the problem can be eased (in XSLT 1.0) by using a "lookup table" pattern, as in


<my:valuelist xmlns:my="http://somenamespace.com";>
  <v>101</v>
  <v>103</v>
  <v>107</v>
  <v>201</v>
  <v>xxx</v>
  <v>whee!</v>
  <v>too many values</v>
  <v>to list in an 'or' sequence</v>
</my:valuelist>

<xsl:variable name="values" select="document('')/*/my:valuelist/v"/>
<!-- bothering with the variable is syntax sugar
     unless you use it more than once -->

and then...

<xsl:when test="@type=$values">

which works by the rule that an equality expression comparing a string to a node set is true if the string equals one of the strings in the node set.

While not always worth it, when the value list is really long this can ease both code readability and maintenance.

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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