Re: [xsl] Getting variable yet most immediate parentNode

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

At 04:40 PM 9/27/2007, was written:

> In addition, you have three ways of writing 'answers': ,../answers, 
> ../../answers and ../../../answers. I am sure that while you were 
> writing it you were thinking something like "it must be possible to 
> achieve this effect more easily"... There are several ways to code 
> around the path-depth problem, but the easiest is probably to leave 
> the path out completely, if you are certain that "answer" elements 
> are what they are at any level: answer elements (and even if you do 
> find later that you have different treatment for different 
> answer-elements, you will simply add a new rule):
>
> I ususally advise against it, but this is a good place to code:
>
> <xsl:apply-templates select=".//answers" />

Actually this should be "ancestor::*/answers", or 
"ancestor::*[answers][1]/answers", shouldn't it?

".//answers" will search the subtree below the current node, rather 
than look up the tree.

"ancestor::*/answers" will select answers elements from all 
ancestors; "ancestor::*[answers][1]/answers" will select only the 
closest one. If you think the latter expression is too opaque, you 
could also write

(ancestor::*/answers)[last()]

... and then try to explain that. :-)

(Steve, the rest of what Abel says is true: you can refactor your 
code into apply-templates select="[the appropriate expression above]" 
and lose all those "when" clauses without fear.)

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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