Re: [xsl] Converting XML to Fixed Length Text Data

Subject: Re: [xsl] Converting XML to Fixed Length Text Data
From: "Garvin Franco" <garvin_franco@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 14:32:24 -0500
Ok David, got it, works like a charm, but what happens if one of the elements is optional and not passed on the source xml file? Wouldn't this throw off the position of the fields which follow? ( e.g. if child2 was not on the source xml file, what impact would this have on the output? Wouldn't the start positiosn of the fields that follow be affected? )

Garvin


From: David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [xsl] Converting XML to Fixed Length Text Data
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:28:28 GMT

  David thanks for the response, but I am not quite clear on the solution.
  1) How does the attribute "att1" vs the element "child1" know where to
  position themselves on the output file? Shouldn't positional info be
  declared somewhere?
it is "declared" by the length of the string variable declared for each
field. If $child2 starts off as a string of 20 spaces and
you do
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
<xsl:value-of select="substring($child2,string-length(.))"/>
in the template for child2, then you will get the character data
of the element followed by enough spaces to pad the total to 20
characters (as long as the element had less than 20 characters)


2) What about the element <xsl:text>, is this not required? xsl:text is in favt never required, but here you don't need it as you are not adding any literal text, only some spaces, which you can enter with xsl:value-of.

So apart from the template I showed, you just need the settings of the
original strings to give the widths of each field, plus the template for
teh parent element needs to give a line break after each row, which you
can do with xsl:text (<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>) or value-of
(<xsl:value-of select="'
'"/>)

David


_____________________________________________________________________
This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet
delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further
information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call
Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service.

XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list



_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com


XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list



Current Thread