Re: [xsl] Dynamic sort on the client side XSL

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bret,

At 06:19 PM 3/17/2004, you wrote:
> Hi there !
>         I have a XML/XSL table that is generated
> server side and then parsed into HTML and sent to the
> client side . I want the user  be able to click any of
> the headings of the table and have the table sort by
> that heading. Is this possible to do the sorting using
> any XSL Sorting functions on the client side without
> having to go back to the server(The reason i dont want
> to go back to the server and request and then sort is
> redundancy ) .

If you are willing to lock yourself into one or another browser's API for 
running the transform on the client, you can serve a page that allows a 
user to control how the transform is performed. But this only works if 
you're relying on the browser's tranformation engine, whereas in your 
scenario the client doesn't perform a transform at all: it's already 
happened on the server.

> Or would i have to use javascript to do the sort on
> client side based on the selection .

That's the way I would do it -- using DOM Javascript that should be 
portable across browsers. In other words, just send (D)HTML, with the 
scripting to allow the user to sort in place just as it would be if there 
were no XML in back. Think of the HTML/Javascript as your presentation 
layer, discrete from your transform. At least you'll have a promise and 
hope for portability that way (whereas the XSLT glue isn't standard at 
all). But test!

Other experts on the different browsers' approaches to XSLT may have other 
insights. But if you're serving up HTML fully cooked, I think you answered 
your own question.

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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