Re: [xsl] Can't get output from xml -> text transformation

["M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Todd,

Understanding what nodes are being processed and matched to a template will help 
in your understanding of whats happening.  <xsl:apply-templates /> is the same 
thing as <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/> which will select all the children of 
the current context (root) and seek out a template to match them to (in your 
case there are no matching templates to the children of context - one node by 
the name of "allGamesDownloadable" - and as such the "value" of each child node 
is simply sent to the output "as is" until there are no more children left to 
process.  The "blank" lines you are seeing are most likely the newline 
characters that exist as child "text" nodes of "allGamesDownloadable" in your 
source XML.

It seems that what you are expecting to happen is for every node (every child of 
a child of a child etc...) to be processed according to document order and when 
there is not matching template it will simply move to the next child or 
grandchild until it finds a match.  While this is in no way an uncommon mistake 
- in fact its a VERY common mistake - it is fundamentally flawed from an XSLT 
template matching perspective and as such will not provide you the results you 
are looking for.  If you try to think of it from the perspective that to gain 
access to the children of the current context node you must begin the recursive 
nature of apply-templates when the desired children are in context you will find 
yourself catching your errors quite easily... for example, the following will 
select the children of the root node, find the best matching template, process 
it accordingly, and then begin the recursive process on the children of the 
current context node ("allGamesDownloadable") by once again calling 
apply-templates at a time when the children are in context.  Because we are 
using "*" for our match value the same template will match the children 
currently being processed which means any children of these children will be 
recursively processed and matched to the same template and this process will 
continue until every node in the source document has gone through "the ringer" 
so to speak...

so this....

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";>
<xsl:output method="text" />

<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:text>
GAMEID,GAMENAME
</xsl:text>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:value-of select="@gameId"/>,
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>

Will output the value of @gameId for every node that is processed by this 
template that has an attribute gameId.

While this particular case will not give you the CSV output you are in desire of 
this should give you just enough information to help move you in the right 
direction...

Best of luck to you!

<M:D/>

Todd Alexander wrote:
> I have an xsl I'm running through xalan against an xml file, with the
> output going to a csv file. My problem is that I get the output
> expected for the first template rule in the csv file but I canot get
> anything output for the second. I'm getting blank spaces for each
> node I'm expecting to hit for the second rule, so I know I'm getting
> there, but no matter what I put inside the rule (xsl:text , xsl:value-
> of etc) I cannot get any text of any kind.
>
> The source xml file looks like:
>
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <allGamesDownloadable>
> <featuredGameList title="Featured Downloads">
> <featuredGame featuredHeadline="blah blah blah"
> gameId="gameOne">
> </featuredGameList>
> <gameGroupList>
> <gameGroup title="Action Games">
> <gameItem gameID="gameOne"/>
> <gameItem gameID="gameTwo"/>
> </gameGroup>
> <gameGroup title="Arcade">
> <gameItem gameID="gameThree"/>
> <gameItem gameID="gameFour"/>
> </gameGroup>
> </gameGroupList>
> </allGamesDownloadable>
>
> The XSL in question is:
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet
> version="1.0"
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";>
> <xsl:output method="text" />
>
> <xsl:template match="/">
> <xsl:text>
> GAMEID,GAMENAME
> </xsl:text>
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> </xsl:template>
>
> <xsl:template match="gameItem">
> <!-- for debugging -->
> <xsl:text>cracker</xsl:text>
> </xsl:template>
>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
>
> What I get output is:
>
> GAMEID,GAMENAME
>
> {then the expected numner of lines with varying numbers of spaces}
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Todd Alexander
> heeznow@xxxxxxx