[xsl] special chars in xsl:attribute tag

[Doug Howell <doug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Jeff, I was able to progress to my next problem with the glossary
application.

<entry>
    <term cat="sw">Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code</term><!-- fix -->
    <acronym>Basic</acronym>
    <def>whatever</def>
</entry>

The stylesheet now lists all terms and acronyms in alphabetical order. For
each acronym, it creates a JavaScript function call and passes the value of
the term to it, like this:

<xsl:for-each select="//term|//acronym">
    <xsl:sort select="." order="ascending"/>
    <p><strong><xsl:value-of select="."/></strong>:
    <xsl:if test="name()='acronym'">
        <em>See </em>
        <a><xsl:attribute name="href">javascript:searchExact('<xsl:value-of
select="preceding-sibling::term"/>')</xsl:attribute><xsl:value-of
select="preceding-sibling::term"/></a>
    </xsl:if>
    <xsl:if test="name()='term'">
        <xsl:if test="following-sibling::acronym">
            (<xsl:value-of select="following-sibling::acronym"/>)
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::def"/>
    </xsl:if>
    </p>
</xsl:for-each>

The XML/XSL files are loaded into an HTML page. The JavaScript function uses
the passed-in parameter to change the select attribute of the xsl:for-each
element and selects the related term. This all works fine except for one
term, the one I've listed above.

The trouble is with the apostrophe. If I include it as it appears above (or
&#39;), the output is:
<a href="javascript:searchExact('Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code')">etc.
This causes an error because the single-quotation mark comes too early.

I've declared  <!ENTITY rsquo "&#8217;"> in the XML document, but when I use
&rsquo; the output is:
<a href="javascript:searchExact('Beginner%E2%80%99s All-Purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code', 'ALL')">etc.
This doesn't work because there is no matching term to find.

If I use &quot; the output is:
<a href="javascript:searchExact('Beginner"s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code', 'ALL')">etc.
This works, but, alas, a quotation mark is not the right character. Sorry,
just trying for a little comic relief.

Have tried a few things with xsl:copy and copy-of but can't seem to get the
right combination. Any help is appreciated!
Thanks,
Doug

Doug Howell
Information Architect, BGI-IT
734.747.7471 (or 477.2857)



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