[xsl] Dealing with breaking out mixed content

[Chris Loschen <loschen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, all!

I'm back with another question -- I hope it doesn't fall into the category 
of "qualitative decline." I am still learning, but I'm trying to do my 
homework before asking questions. I don't seem to be able to come up with a 
good answer for this one though.

I have some mixed content paragraphs which I need to break up into multiple 
paragraphs, each one beginning with a specified string. See my sample input 
and desired output below. (I'll clean up some of the other cruft like the 
extra br elements later.) I tried to set up some templates (which I've 
included below) for this based on the example in Michael Kay's XSLT 2nd 
ed., p. 550. However, Mr. Kay's script was dealing with a pure string of 
#PCDATA and I've got nodes mixed in, so I'm getting an error that I cannot 
"convert #STRING to a NodeList!" (If I've misunderstood any of that, please 
let me know.) What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to totally rethink my 
approach, because "substring-before" and "substring-after" are meant to 
work on strings, not mixed content? If that's it, is there a way to 
accomplish what I need to do?

Thanks again for all your previous assistance, and thank you in advance for 
helping me with this one.


SAMPLE INPUT:

<p class="extract-9"><span class="extract-7"><b>Did You Know?</b></span>How 
to read a car ad:<span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Low mileage</i> means 
<i>the odometer doesn&rsquo;t work<br /></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> 
<i>All original</i> means <i>needs new everything<br 
/></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Health forces sale</i> means 
<i>I&rsquo;m sick of this car<br /></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> 
<i>Must see</i> means <i>I won&rsquo;t put anything in writing<br 
/></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Runs like a top</i> means 
<i>wobbles when driven slowly<br /></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> 
<i>Mint</i> means <i>there&rsquo;s an old roll of Lifesavers under the 
seat<br /></i><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Rare</i> means <i>most 
examples of this model fell apart long ago</i></p>

DESIRED OUTPUT:

<p class="extract-9"><span class="extract-7"><b>Did You Know?</b></span>How 
to read a car ad:</p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Low mileage</i> 
means <i>the odometer doesn&rsquo;t work<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>All original</i> 
means <i>needs new everything<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Health forces 
sale</i> means <i>I&rsquo;m sick of this car<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Must see</i> means 
<i>I won&rsquo;t put anything in writing<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Runs like a top</i> 
means <i>wobbles when driven slowly<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Mint</i> means 
<i>there&rsquo;s an old roll of Lifesavers under the seat<br /></i></p>
<p class="extract-9"><span>&amp;(!!char1!!);</span> <i>Rare</i> means 
<i>most examples of this model fell apart long ago</i></p>


XSLT FRAGMENT:

<xsl:template name="separate-lists-char1">
        <xsl:param name="list" />
        <xsl:variable name="nlist" 
select="concat(normalize-space($list),'&amp;(!!char1!!);')" />
        <xsl:variable name="first" 
select="substring-before($nlist,'&amp;(!!char1!!);')" />
        <xsl:variable name="rest" 
select="substring-after($nlist,'&amp;(!!char1!!);')" />
        <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
        <p class="{@class}">
        <span><xsl:text>&amp;(!!char1!!); </xsl:text></span>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="$first" />
        </p>
        <xsl:if test="$rest">
                <xsl:call-template name="separate-lists-char1">
                        <xsl:with-param name="list" select="$rest" />
                </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>


<xsl:template match="oeb:p[oeb:span[starts-with(.,'&amp;(!!char1!!);') and 
position() != 1]]">
        <xsl:call-template name="separate-lists-char1">
                <xsl:with-param name="list" select="." />
        </xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>


--Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Texterity ~ XML and PDF ePublishing Services
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Loschen, XML Developer
Texterity, Inc.
144 Turnpike Road
Southborough, MA 01772 USA
tel: +1.508.804.3033
fax: +1.508.804.3110
email: loschen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.texterity.com/ 


XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list