Re: [xsl] Displaying Element Values - basic ?

["Jay Bryant" <jay@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Forgive me if this posted already.
>
> I'm having trouble pulling the value of an element, I want to read the
> value of element <Assignment>. I can't figure out how to do it, even
> though it's extremely basic. I'm using the W3C xslt tutorial and they
> really don't have anything on how to do this, using my format. I would
> like to keep my xml structure, because this is easy to read format and
> it's generated dynamically by a PHP application. Can anyone give me a tip?
>
> xml:
>        <Assignments>
>                <Assignment duedate = "1/21/07" assigned =
> "1/02/07">Read Ch.3</Assignment>
>                <Assignment duedate = "1/30/07" assigned =
> "1/02/07">Test Ch. 3</Assignment>
>        </Assignments>
>
> My current XSLT:
>        <xsl:for-each select="Assignments/Assignment">
>                <tr>
>                        <td><xsl:value-of select="@DateDue"/></td>
>                        <td><xsl:value-of select="@DateAssigned"/></td>
>                        <!-- Not going to pull the value -->
>                        <td><xsl:value-of select="Assignment"></td>
>                </tr>
>        </xsl:for-each>

One of the core concepts of XSTL is context. In your case, the for-each 
instruction sets the context to the Assignment elements. For <xsl:value-of 
select="Assignment"> to work, an Assignment element would have to have an 
Assignment element as a child.

What you need to do is select the current context, thus:

<xsl:value-of select=".">

Also, I bet your overall design would benefit from applying templates at 
each level rather than using for-each to reach past an intermediate level of 
elements. For people coming from a procedural language, for-each seems like 
a for loop and feels comfortable. Unfortunately, that's a dangerous 
mis-perception that usually leads to some really hard-to-solve issues. So, I 
suggest you get in the habit of doing things the XSLT way and use templates 
as your first choice and for-each when you must.

To do the same thing with templates, by the way, you'd have two templates, 
thus:

<xsl:template match="Assignments">
 <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="Assignment">
 <tr>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="@DateDue"/></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="@DateAssigned"/></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
 </tr>
</xsl:template>

HTH

Oh, and welcome to XSLT.

Jay Bryant
Bryant Communication Services