Re: [xsl] in search for more elegant XPaths

[David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I very often testing for element nodes that have character content with
> *[string-length(normalize-space(.))>0]

No need to work out the length (which can be surprisingly costly for
general unicode strings) you can just do

 *[normalize-space(.)]

as the predicate is true if teh string is non empty. (Although I have a
feeling saxon for example does that rewrite for you anyway, so it may
make no difference.)


> 	<xsl:text>

You haven't specified a return type for ypur fuction but if it's
intended to be a string declaring it as as="xs:string" and using
<xsl:sequence select="'sozial'"/> rather than
<xsl:text>sozial</xsl:text>
saves the cost of building a text node.

<xsl:function name="ln:getCaseType" as="xs:string>
	<xsl:param name="case" as="element()"/>
	<xsl:choose>
   <xsl:when test="matches(.,'^[LB]?SG')">
    <xsl:sequence select="'sozial'"/>
   </xsl:when>
   <xsl:when test="matches(.,'^[LB]?A(rb)?G')">
    <xsl:sequence select="'arbeit'"/>
   </xsl:when>

Those regex are a bit more lax than your tests but they need not be.

David

________________________________________________________________________
The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd is a company registered in England
and Wales with company number 1249803. The registered office is:
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, United Kingdom.

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is
powered by MessageLabs. 
________________________________________________________________________