[xsl] Array of all X elements in XML

Subject: [xsl] Array of all X elements in XML
From: Jorge <chocolate.camera@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 00:21:23 +0200
Hi,

When I learned that the Xpath path "A//B" returns all B nodes in A context, I
assumed that appending an N index number would return the Nth node in that
list.

I.e. using the following snippet as the source XML to be transformed

> <article>
> 	<p>1st paragraph</p>
> 	<p>2nd paragraph</p>
> </article>
> <article>
> 	<p>3rd paragraph</p>
> 	<p>4rth paragraph</p>
> </article>

I assumed //p[2] would return only "<p>2nd paragraph</p>", whatever the
hierarchy looks like.

I now see I was wrong, and instead returns all nodes on the Nth position in
their respective tree level. (i.e. returns "<p>2nd paragraph</p>, <p>4rth
paragraph</p>").

In order to mimic the behavior I originally expected, I can only think of
creating a variable, assigning all p element nodes to it, and from then on use
that variable to get the single Nth node inside the variable's context.

I.e., if I wanted to get the "4rth paragraph" irrespectively of the tree, I
could use this XSLT

> <xsl:variable name="PARAGRAPHS" select="//p"/>
> <copy-of>
> 	<xsl:value-of select="$PARAGRAPHS/p[4]"/>
> </copy-of>

Is there any other way more straight?

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