Re: [xsl] Generating a list of items NOT present in source XML

[Greg Faron <gfaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:17 AM 5/17/2002, you wrote:

> It depends a bit what your missing nodes are, if it's numbers then the
> stylesheet has a chance, if the thing is a list of family birthdays and
> I've forgotten one (not uncommon:-) then the stylesheet probably won't
> have much of a chance of filling in the gaps. (Hmm now there's a
> challenge for Jeni, can she provide a stylesheet that will fill in my
> Mum's birthday...)

  :)  No, I realize that XSL is not magical (though it is pretty 
close).  I was talking particular about positive, integral index values.

> Anyway for your example,
>
> <xsl:for-each select="//*[position()&lt;/root/obj]">
> <xsl:if test="not(position() = /root/obj)">
>  <obj><childnode><xsl:value-of select="position()"/></childnode></obj>
> </xsl:for-each>
>
> probably works, but not if node 10 was missing.

Exposition:
  My query originates from a collection of Star Wars toys that I have at 
home.  Each toy is manufactured with a series index value, and I am missing 
some of the individual products.  Since I'm a geek and have keyed my 
collection into XML, I would like for XSL to generate a listing of all the 
missing indices.  The upper limit is variable (for different collections), 
but is almost guaranteed to be greater than 10.  In fact, the indexed node 
is figure/details/title/series/number.

  I thought a called-template with parameters would be best, since the 
indexed node might change for different kinds of collectibles (e.g. a comic 
book might be listed as publisher/title/volume/issue) and the starting 
value may not even 1.

  It would be supremely cool if the type of indexed data could be changed 
dynamically to some pre-determinable "growing" type (e.g. a,b,c,d,e,...; 
1,2,3,4,5,... ; i,ii,iii,iv,v,vi,...).

  Probably, the outputted node tree should only be something like

<missing>
  <datum>2</datum>
  <datum>6</datum>
  <datum>8</datum>
</missing>

instead of the complex tree I imagined in the first post.  Hmmmm...


Greg Faron
Integre Technical Publishing Co.



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