Re: [xsl] Big long xpath, almost there, but not quite

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Russ,

At 02:02 PM 4/16/2009, you wrote:
> I want to thank everybody for their help on this. Michael Kay, thaks 
> for your help very much. I entered the following Xpath. It is 
> getting there, but it still is not quite right.
>
> //GenTable[count(entry[Emphasis[normalize-space(.) = 'Address 
> Offset' and @type='bold'] or
> Emphasis[normalize-space(.)='Physical Address' and @type='bold'] or
> Emphasis[normalize-space(.)='Instance' and @type='bold'] or
> Emphasis[normalize-space(.)='Description' and @type='bold'] or
> Emphasis[normalize-space(.)='Type' and @type='bold'] ]) >= 4]
>
> When i use this, as i would like at least 4 entry element that match 
> the conditions above, hopefully 5, i would think this should do the 
> trick and return the GenTable elements that contain them.
>
> When i run it, however, i get no GenTable elements. When i remove 
> the count() function, i get no GenTable elements. When i change the 
> 4 9the minimum match value, to something smaller like 1) i get no 
> GenTable elements. When i change the number 4 to 0, i get ALL the 
> GenTable elements.

The fact that you get all your GenTable elements when your count 
is >= 0, but none of them when your count >= 1, indicates that your 
count is 0 for all of them. In turn, this suggests your conditionals 
are wrong in some systematic way.

I'll rephrase your XPath in a way that is more or less the same, but 
a bit more legible. (I say "more or less" since one thing I'm doing 
is removing the normalize-space() munging; if you need it you can put 
it back but it complicates things for purposes of explanation. But 
none of my other changes are meaningful.)

//GenTable[count(child::entry
  [child::Emphasis[@type='bold'][.='Address Offset'] or
   child::Emphasis[@type='bold'][.='Physical Address'] or
   child::Emphasis[@type='bold'][.='Instance'] or
   child::Emphasis[@type='bold'][.='Description'] or
   child::Emphasis[@type='bold'][.='Type'] ] )
           >= 4]

So ... it's collecting all GenTable elements that have at least four 
entry children meeting the following criterion: they must all have at 
least one Emphasis child of @type='bold' and with a value 
(whitespace-normalized, as you had it) of "Address Offset", "Physical 
Address", "Instance", "Description" or "Type".

But evidently you have none, and indeed you haven't got any GenTable 
elements with even one entry child meeting this test.

Just guessing wildly (sorry, I didn't save your data sample), I 
expect that the relations among the elements isn't right. Do GenTable 
elements have entry children (a table with entries but not rows)? Do 
entry elements have Emphasis children?

Maybe instead of 'child::entry' you want 'descendant::entry' 
(shorthand: './/entry') or '*/entry' (short for 
'child::*/child::entry') or 'row/entry'.

Additionally, there's (at least) one other thing you can do to make 
the path more concise, even as it stands:

//GenTable[count(entry
  [Emphasis[@type='bold']
           [(.='Address Offset') or
            (.='Physical Address') or
            (.='Instance') or
            (.='Description') or
            (.='Type') ] )
           >= 4]

... and, were you able to use XPath 2.0 (and putting the 
normalize-space() back):

//GenTable[count(entry
  [Emphasis[@type='bold']
           [normalize-space(.)=('Address Offset', 'Physical 
Address', 'Instance',
               'Description', 'Type') ] )
           >= 4]

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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