RE: [xsl] Finding parent of the middle child

["Brook Ellingwood" <belling@xxxxxxx>]

Bingo. I find that lots of times my first take on templates is pretty
verbose and I tighten them up later, but I didn't catch that I was
getting a result tree fragment. I'm going to have to think about that
one for a while.

Thanks for the help.

-- Brook

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 3:27 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [xsl] Finding parent of the middle child


> > I do this with:
> >
> > <xsl:variable name="gearMid">
> > 	<xsl:value-of select="round(count(//rec_gear_sec/*) div 2)"/>
> > </xsl:variable>
> >

Don't do that! Instead, write

<xsl:variable name="gearMid" select="round(count(//rec_gear_sec/*) div
2)"/>

You want a number, not a result tree fragment containing a text node
whose string value is the decimal representation of a number. You also
want to avoid writing three lines of code that give you roughly what you
want when you could write one line that gives you exactly what you want.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/