RE: [xsl] trying to drop leading/trailing WS text nodes from verb atim

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 David.Pawson@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Robert, if you try your solution you make conclude, as I did,
> that the spacing offsets the listings nicely, rather
> than 'mixing' them too closely with the surrounding text?
> 
> regards DaveP

  i thought about that, but decided i wanted to use the verbatim
before/after spacing attributes to control that more precisely.
but there was one thing about the posted solution that i found 
curious, and it has to do with programming practice (just note the
overall structure of the test below):

  <xsl:variable name="contsl">
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="count($before) = 0">
	<xsl:call-template name="remove-lf-left">
          <xsl:with-param name="astr" select="$conts"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$conts"/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
  </xsl:variable>


  note that the above code tests for two possibilities -- that
count($before) = 0, or it doesn't.  fair enough, but from years
of recursive programming, i'm used to putting the trivial condition
at the top, to get it out of the way quickly.  so i could have
just as easily written this as:

    count($before) > 0 --> trivial
    else               --> recursive call

clearly, the solutions are equivalent, but do folks have any
strong opinions on *recommended* practice?

  as i said, i've always been a fan of trying to recognize and
deal with trivial conditions as soon as possible, to make the
code easier to read top-down.

  thoughts?

rday


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