Re: [xsl] Matching the first text element in a subtree

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martin,

In order to avoid the monster match pattern, I'd probably relent from 
my usual habits and put part of the testing here into an explicit conditional:

<xsl:template match="div0//text()[normalize-space()]">
  <xsl:choose>
     <xsl:when test="not(ancestor-or-self::node()[ancestor::div0]/
                         preceding-sibling::node()[normalize-space()]">
       <!-- basically Ken's test, only broken up -->
       <wrapper>
         <xsl:value-of select="substring(.,1,1)"/>
       </wrapper>
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise>
       <xsl:value-of select="substring(.,1,1)"/>
     </xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
  <xsl:value-of select="substring(.,2)"/>
</xsl:template>

Ordinarily, I'm inclined to think that choose/when/otherwise is less 
elegant than doing the selection entirely in the match pattern. This 
is an exception, since I think that (for maintenance purposes) this 
is easier both to understand, and to comment with whatever 
explanation is called for to understand it fully.

Note that I've also varied slightly from Ken's solution in not 
requiring the text node to be in a paragraph. (I missed whether that 
was part of the original requirement.)

It's not a radical improvement but depending on your feelings about 
such things you may like the balance it strikes a bit better.

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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