Re: [xsl] How do I pass the mode as a string?

["David Farmer farmer@xxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe do it in Python with the "lxml" module?

On Tue, 3 Mar 2020, Kerry, Richard richard.kerry@xxxxxxxx wrote:

> Ok,
> Thanks all for the explanations.  I'll look at the alternatives.
> If this was C++, which is what I use most of the time (XSL is infrequent, just when I want to manipulate some XML) I would
> use some kind of polymorphism to achieve this.  I'd define a couple of one-line functions with the different variables, or
> calls, and pass the appropriate one to the outer function so they could be run on its results (somewhat garbled,
> abbreviated explanation, sorry).  I'm not aware of anything in XSL that looks like polymorphism, but I would be interested
> to know if there was a construct that might be similar, or usable for cases like this one.
> Granted I can't construct variable names dynamically, but I can have a number of variables existing simultaneously and
> select one and pass it around by address if I need to.  I don't see an analogous construct in XSL, except to use
> choose/when to select a line of code based on an actual variable.
> 
> I could send my examples if that would be best, but I think that would provide a lot of unnecessary code just to show a
> small bit of context.
> What I am actually trying to do is to get a number of XML files processed.  The files are in similar folders, called
> 'input' and 'output'.  The files' names follow a couple of name patterns, acq_(\d{4}) and out_(\d{4}). There is identical
> code to scan through the folders and identify the files I want to process (and extract the numbers from the filenames).
>  They are then passed to apply-templates with the different modes as mentioned.
> So the file scanning, while not especially complicated, is not entirely trivial and I'd like to have it written just once.
>  And then, because the contents of the files differs in structure, they are handled by different templates, with different
> modes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Blue line
> 
> Richard Kerry
> 
> BNCS Engineer, SI SOL Telco & Media Vertical Practice
> 
> M: +44 (0)7812 325518
> 
> 2nd Floor, MidCity Place, 71 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EA
> 
> richard.kerry@xxxxxxxx
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
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> ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> From: Michael Kay mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: 03 March 2020 11:48
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [xsl] How do I pass the mode as a string?  
> Section '6.6.2 in the XSLT 3.0 spec states:
> 
> The xsl:apply-templates element also has an optional mode attribute. The value of this attribute must be one of the
> following:
>
>  *  an EQName, which is expanded as described in 5.1.1 Qualified Names to define the name of a mode
>  *  the token #default, to indicate that the default mode for the stylesheet module is to be used
>  *  the token #unnamed, to indicate that the unnamed mode is to be used
>  *  the token #current, to indicate that the current mode is to be used
> It does not allow an expression, and it does not allow an attribute value template. 
> 
> It's similar to trying to refer to a variable by name: you can't construct variable names dynamically either, however much
> you feel it would make your life easier.
> 
> You haven't described your problem so it's difficult to suggest a different approach to solving it. Higher-order functions
> might be the right way.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
> 
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