Re: [xsl] getting the longest text node

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Florian,

There's an idiom for this kind of thing. It was first invented by ... 
someone who no doubt reads this list!

<xsl:template match="root">
  <xsl:for-each select="//apple">
    <xsl:sort select="string-length(.)" order="descending"/>
    <xsl:if test="position() = 1">
      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

It selects all the apple elements in the document and iterates over the 
set. The node list it selects is ordered by the string lengths of the 
apples selected. Only the first in this list is processed (hence you get 
the value of the first apple in the document whose length is longer than or 
equal to all the other apples' lengths).

As for "most performant and best" I'm rather doubt that I can guarantee 
that. :->

I hope that helps--
Wendell

At 04:35 PM 3/11/2003, you wrote:
> i have a xml document like this:
>
>
> <root>
>   <foo>
>     <apple>a</apple>
>     <orange>oiasd</orange>
>   </foo>
>   <foo>
>     <apple>hellooooo</apple>
>     <orange>test</orange>
>   </foo>
> </root>
>
> what would be the most performant and best way to get
> the longest text of a apple node, and the longest text
> of a orange node?


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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