Re: [xsl] constructing arrays in XSLT with templates

["Martin Honnen martin.honnen@xxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 18.06.2021 20:40, Alan Painter alan.painter@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hi fellow XSLT enthusiasts,
>
> I've been constructingB json in XSLT using xsl:map and xsl:map-entry and
> the resulting code looks really nice.B  But I'm a bit stuck with arrays
> and was hoping for some enlightenment.

> Within the template for "/books" I find that I have to declare a
> variable in order to represent the sequence of maps that come from the
> nested apply-templates.
>
> I'd like to be able to do away with the intermediate $books variable
> which is used for the purpose of constructing the array using the xpath
> "array { ... }" expression.
>
> Is there a more elegant way of doing this?

With Saxon PE and EE there is an extension instruction saxon:array you
can use.

And XSLT 4 has some new element doing similar stuff.

But in pure XSLT 3 you need some way to work around the lack of that
instruction so your variable or a function that then does
apply-templates are needed for the general, recursive approach.

Of course for the limited sample you could be tempted to inline anything
as an XPath 3.1 expression.