Re: [xsl] Matching only text nodes with certain (complicated) properties

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

At 12:18 PM 1/9/2009, Martin wrote:
> Martin Honnen wrote:
> > David B?rgin wrote:
> >
> > > In one template of my XSL stylesheet I'd like to match a text node 
> > > with certain properties. Namely, the template should match for any 
> > > text node where the nearest preceding non-empty text node is 
> > > farther away than (= comes before) the nearest preceding <pb/> 
> > > (page-break milestone element).
> >  <xsl:template
> >    match="text()[preceding::text()[1] >> preceding::pb[1]]">
>
> I think you want << instead of >>:
>  <xsl:template
>    match="text()[preceding::text()[1] << preceding::pb[1]]">

This will work in XSLT 2.0, although it sounds like you also want

text()[preceding::text()[normalize-space()][1] << preceding::pb[1]]

... which makes sure that whitespace-only text nodes won't be 
considered in the test.

In XSLT 1.0 the problem is nastier and expensive, although doable. 
But when restricted to 1.0, one should keep in mind other options 
(such as judicious pre-processing) to alleviate problems either with 
performance or code complexity.

It's doable because the pb can in fact be found on preceding:: (even 
when not on preceding-sibling::).

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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