[xsl] Count leading spaces using xpath expression

[Grainne Reilly <greilly1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I am looking for a way to count the number of leading spaces in the text of 
an element.  I have written the following template which does this:

	<xsl:template name="countIndent">
		<xsl:param name="str" />
		<xsl:param name="leadingSpaces" select="0"/>
		<xsl:choose>
			<xsl:when test="(string-length($str) != 0) and 
(normalize-space(substring($str, 1, 1)) = '' )" >
					<xsl:call-template name="countIndent">
					<xsl:with-param name="str" select="substring($str, 2)" />
					<xsl:with-param name="leadingSpaces" select="$leadingSpaces + 1"/>
				</xsl:call-template>
			</xsl:when>
			<xsl:otherwise>
				<xsl:value-of select="$leadingSpaces" />
			</xsl:otherwise>
		</xsl:choose>
	</xsl:template>

However, I'd like to get this information as an xpath expression (so I can 
use it in a predicate e.g. /myElement[(indent expression) > 3]). Is this 
possible (it would only have to work for spaces, not all whitespace)?
Thanks for any advice.
Grainne.



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