Re: Using <eval> to get a value for a flow object attribute

[Chris Maden <crism@xxxxxxx>]

[Ed Burns]
> How can I use the eval tag to get an attribute from the current
> element and have that be rendered as the value of an attribute in
> the result output?
> 
> This example uses HTML flow objects.  Note that <SELECT> is a flow
> object, not an XSL tag.  (MSXSL and DOCPROC they handle this by
> replacing <select> with <select-elements>.)
> 
> <rule>
> 	<target-element type="system"/>
> 	<SELECT NAME="<eval>getAttribute("label")</eval>">
> 		<children/>
> </rule>
> 
> Is there any way to escape the enclosing quotes?

More confusion brought about by "HTML flow objects".

<SELECT> is an *element*, not text that looks like one.  In XSL '97,
it means "make a select element".

NAME is an attribute of the <SELECT> element.  The string '<eval>'
inside an attribute value is just that, a string, not an element.
Elements can not occur inside attribute values.

And finally, <SELECT> is unclosed; the above sample is not a
well-formed XML document (as all XSL stylesheets must be).

Now, as to how to fix this: Any attribute value can start with an
equals sign, and the rest of the attribute value will be evaluated as
an ECMAscript expression.

The quotes are a problem, and the '97 submission is unclear on the
order in which things are processed.  An XML parser should resolve any
entity references, so you could do
	<SELECT NAME="=getAttribute(&quot;label&quot;)">
but I wouldn't trust MSXSL to have implemented that yet.  It's worth
testing, but for robustness, I'd do this:

<rule>
	<target-element type="system"/>
	<SELECT NAME='=getAttribute("label")'>
		<children/>
	</SELECT>
</rule>

-Chris
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