Re: [xsl] copy-of too powerful or wrong

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

S,

Yes, copy-of will copy an entire node subtree. In the case of your 
template, you are instructing that all node children of the root be copied 
completely to output.

What you actually want can be accomplished using xsl:copy, which copies 
only the current node, and not its descendants. Accordingly, having copied, 
you will use xsl:apply-templates to continue traversing "down" the tree, 
copying descendants as you go (and matching the templates that say not to 
copy the descendants you don't want). This is what is done by the "identity 
template", which you can look up in Google or any reasonably-complete 
reference to XSLT, and which looks like this (the variant of the moment):

<xsl:template match="node()|@*">
  <xsl:copy>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

So you are correct: xsl:copy-of is both too powerful and wrong. xsl:copy 
will be just right.

Cheers,
Wendell

At 04:54 PM 8/9/2004, you wrote:
> I'd like to be able to do something like this
>
> <xsl:template match="/">
> <xsl:copy-of select="@*|node()"/>
> </xsl:template>
>
> <!--SUMMARY - this comments out the Summary chunk-->
> <xsl:template match="/chunk/chunk[chunk-meta/title[(text()='Summary')]]"/>
> <!--INSIGHTS commented out-->
> <xsl:template match="/chunk/chunk[chunk-meta/title[(text()='Insights')]]"/>
> <!--KEYTERMS commented out-->
> <xsl:template match="/chunk/chunk[@differentiation='keyterms']"/>
> <!--REVIEW QUESTIONS commented out-->
> <xsl:template match="/chunk/chunk[@differentiation='review-questions']"/>
> <!--INSIGHTS commented out-->
> <xsl:template match="/chunk/ref-note-list[title/text()='Additional 
> Readings']"/>
>
>
> Where the first template match copies everything and the additional 
> template matches comment out those specific chunks. It doesn't work - as 
> you could guess. But I do not know why - I am a beginner and copy-of is 
> very powerful - too powerful. I am looking to rebuild the xml 
> (transformed) using copy-of - is that the wrong thing to do?
> --+--


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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