Subject: Re: [xsl] ATTRIBUTE ORDER From: "M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 22:26:39 -0600 |
You can, however, always sort your attributes: if they're always in alphabetical order they'll always be in the same order.
<xsl:for-each select="@*"> <xsl:sort select="name()"/> ... </xsl:for-each>
Since collating sequences for xsl:sort aren't defined in the spec, you've no guarantee that this will give the same attribute order in different implementations; for example the handling of hyphens within sort keys is known to vary from one XSLT processor to another.
Both Dimitre and Dr. Kay bring out an important point to understand. The only counter argument I would make is "How many people actually use more than one XSLT processor on the same code base in production?"
While the cross-platform differences are important to understand, it would seem the fact that the code will run cross-platform is the most important piece to all of this. The fact that theres a chance the results might be different under certain conditions would allow nicely for a simple comment to be added in this section of the code that states something like:
<!-- WARNING: Different XSLT processors can produce different output results "Since collating sequences for xsl:sort aren't defined in the spec" -->
Obviosuly you could leave out the quotes -- just making sure I pulled out the fact that I was quoting from Dr. Kay's email in this response.
Of course, this kind of information can't be overlooked, as you simply have no idea who might be running your code and with what processor at any point in the future. As such, a comment similar to the above should be inserted into your code base. If you use XDoc or another similar documentation system, then using the proper comment syntax will ensure this can be properly pulled out into the docs.
Is there anything I'm missing that would make the above dangerous in any way? I can't think of anything right off hand to add to this to ensure any future problems can be properly handled, but I'll leave plenty of room for someone who feels there more to add.
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