Re: [xsl] testing element's contents

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nate,

At 12:56 PM 10/3/2002, you wrote:
> Thanks Wendell. Thinking it over, your simple template
> of
>
> > <xsl:template match="p[not(normalize-space(.))]">
> >    <xsl:apply-templates/>
> > </xsl:template>
>
> will not work, as much as I wish it would, as I am
> allowing other elements such as <strong> and <em> and
> I could get passed a node set like this
>
> <p><strong>this is bold text</strong></p>
>
> OR this
>
> <p><em>this is bold text</em></p>
>
> For both of those cases, they would need to get
> wrapped in a p tag in the output.

The test will work for these cases.

If there are any elements that contain non-whitespace text anywhere inside 
your p, you'll get a wrapper with this test. You just need to decide 
whether this describes your requirements accurately. For example, maybe if 
you had

<p><ul><li>list with one item</li></ul></p>

you'd want to strip that p (whereas the test I've given will create a p in 
output for this). I dunno, it depends on your source and what you're doing 
with it.

The real point is if you can characterize your requirement more simply, you 
can write simpler code. Lots of overlapping tests on the presence of 
certain element types in certain positions make me nervous: a recipe for 
incompleteness, confusion and breakage under maintenance. To be avoided if 
possible.

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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