RE: [xsl] Integrated sort using different elements

["Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When you talk of an element with no monogr/author, do you mean the
monogr/author element is absent, or do you mean the element is present and
its value is empty? Being present but empty would account for the results
you are describing.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/ 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Quinn Dombrowski [mailto:qdombrow@xxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 19 February 2009 17:16
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [xsl] Integrated sort using different elements
> 
> Hi Ken,
> 
> Thanks for the tip. A bit earlier, I tried the
> 
> <xsl:sort select="
>  ( monogr/author, analytic/author, monogr/editor, monogr/title )[1]"/>
> 
> and it produced some kind of weird results. First it listed 
> the ones with analytic/author but no monogr/author. Then the 
> ones with a monogr/title, and no author anywhere. Then it 
> alphabetized all the ones with monogr/author. (In my smaller 
> test set, there didn't happen to be any editors.)
> 
> I'm not sure what's happening there, but when I did:
>         <xsl:sort select="concat(monogr[1]/author[1],
> analytic[1]/author[1], monogr[1]/editor[1], 
> monogr[1]/title[1])"/> ([1]'s because there's sometimes 
> multiple editions with multiple authors)
> 
> it sorted everything the way I needed it. I'm not sure if the 
> data happens to be such that the concat() problem you 
> mentioned doesn't come up, but one way or another it works.
> 
> Thanks everyone for your help! This has really been a life saver.
> 
> ~Quinn
> 
> 
> G. Ken Holman wrote:
> > At 2009-02-19 10:13 -0600, Quinn Dombrowski wrote:
> >> I'm using 2.0 (sorry, I should've mentioned that), so I'll try 
> >> Michael's solution and let you know how it goes...
> >
> > Before you do so, Quinn .....
> >
> > At 2009-02-19 10:19 -0500, I wrote:
> >> In XSLT 2.0, choose the first item in a sequence of many items, 
> >> priority indicated by the order of your sequence:
> >>
> >> <xsl:sort select="
> >>  ( monogr/author, analytic/author, monogr/editor, monogr/title 
> >> )[1]"/>
> >
> > At 2009-02-19 15:47 +0000, Michael Kay wrote:
> >> Would it work to sort on the concatenation? -
> >>
> >> <xsl:sort select="concat(monogr/author, analytic/author, 
> >> monogr/editor, monogr/title"/>
> >
> > I think the sequence solution is safer than the 
> concatenation solution 
> > because if more than one field is present, then the initial 
> characters 
> > of a following field, tacked on to the final characters of 
> a preceding 
> > field, will but the record out of order.
> >
> > Consider the following:
> >
> > <biblStruct id="b1">
> >   <monogr>
> >     <author>abc</author>
> >     ...
> >   <analytic>
> >     <author>xyz</author>
> >   ...
> > <biblStruct id="b2">
> >   <monogr>
> >     <author>abcdef</author>
> >
> > Using the sequence approach would put "b1" before "b2" in 
> the result 
> > because "abc" is before "abcdef", while using the concatenation 
> > approach would put "b2" before "b1" in the result because 
> "abcdef" is 
> > before "abcxyz".
> >
> > I hope this illustrates an important issue that was 
> neglected in your 
> > decision.
> >
> > . . . . . . . . . . Ken
> >
> > --
> > Upcoming hands-on  XQuery, XSLT, UBL & code list training classes:
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> > G. Ken Holman                 mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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