[xsl] Finding Only Initial Following Siblings That Meet Some Criteria

["Eliot Kimber ekimber@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In my XML I can have adjacent elements that should be processed as a unit, where the adjacent elements all have the same value for a given attribute. Other elements with the same attribute could be following siblings but separated by other elements or text nodes, i.e.:

<p>Text <ph outputclass="x">1</ph><ph outputclass="x">2</ph> more text <ph outputclass="x">New sequence</ph></p>

Where the rendered result should combine the first two <ph> elements but not the third, i.e.:

<p>Text <x>12</x> more text <x>New sequence</x></p>

Processing is applied to the first element in the document with the @outputclass value "x" and then I want to grab any immediately following siblings with the same @outputclass value and no intervening text or element nodes.

My solution is to use for-each-group like so:

    <xsl:variable name="this" as="element()" select="."/>
    <xsl:variable name="adjacent-sibs" as="element()+">
      <xsl:for-each-group select="($this, $this/following-sibling::node())" 
        group-adjacent="string(@outputclass)">
        <xsl:if test=". is $this">
          <xsl:sequence select="current-group()"/>
        </xsl:if>
      </xsl:for-each-group>
    </xsl:variable>

Which works, but I'm thinking there must be a more compact way to do the same selection, but the formulation is escaping me.

Is there a more compact or more efficient way to make this selection of only immediately-adjacent following siblings?

Thanks,

E.
--
Eliot Kimber
http://contrext.com