Re: [xsl] Recursion (I think)

[Nicholas Orr <nick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 26/09/2005, at 9:52 PM, Ragulf Pickaxe wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > Would that be
> >
> > ancestor-or-self::*[ObjectType][1]/@id
>
> No, that you get you an ancestor node (or the current node) that has a
> childnode with the element name ObjectType.
>
> > What purpose does the [1] serve?
>
> What ancester-or-self::*[@id] does, is to select the superset of all
> ancestors and current node, which have an attribute called id.
> The [1] here, then, selects the first of these nodes in reverse
> document order - as that is the order of ancestor-or-self
> (buttom-up)).
> The last /@id selects the attribute id of that node.
>
> What you would want was probably something like
> ancestor-or-self::*[@id][self::ObjectType][1]/@id
>
> I think you can write:
> ancestor-or-self::ObjectType[@id][1]/@id
> But this is not tested (I haven't had to do this before, and my
> reference book is not nearby).
>
> Hope this helps

Yes, it does, thanks.  This whole xslt thing is becoming clearer as I  
see more examples.

The problem is the examples you see in the books and websites I find  
never seem to cover the situation I'm working with.  And of course,  
you can never completely describe the problem you're having if you  
don't know the solution.  So thanks michael, david and ragulf for  
your help.  Much appreciated.

Nick