Re: [xsl] XSLT2: A sequence of more than one item is not allowed as the first argument of contains()

Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT2: A sequence of more than one item is not allowed as the first argument of contains()
From: Colin Paul Adams <colin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 25 Sep 2005 20:23:38 +0100
>>>>> "Xiaocun" == Xiaocun Xu <xiaocunxu@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Xiaocun> Hi, I am having problem with contains() in XSLT2
    Xiaocun> (Saxon8.5.1).  The following code is checking if the
    Xiaocun> classname contains the word "notification":
 
    Xiaocun> <xsl:variable name="vKeyword" select="notification"/>
    Xiaocun> <xsl:variable name="vClassName"
    Xiaocun> select="Class/@classname"/> <xsl:if
    Xiaocun> test="contains($vClassName, $vKeyword)"> <xsl:copy-of
    Xiaocun> select="."/> </xsl:if>

    Xiaocun> XSLT2 using Saxon8.5.1 returns the following error:
    Xiaocun> XPTY0004: A sequence of more than one item is not allowed
    Xiaocun> as the first argument of contains()

    Xiaocun> Using XSLT 1, Saxon8.5.1 returns no error.

That's because in XPath 1.0 compatibility mode, only the first item in
the sequence will be considered.

    Xiaocun> What does that error mean?

The error means that the expression Class/@classname contains more
than one item. This would be the case if the context node has multiple
Class children.

    Xiaocun> How do I check if an
    Xiaocun> attribute contains a keyword in XSLT2?

Well, you could just change:

<xsl:variable name="vClassName"
select="Class/@classname"/>

to

<xsl:variable name="vClassName"
select="Class[1]/@classname"/>

and you will then get the same behaviour as XSLT 1.0.

But I suspect this isn't what you really want. Perhaps you want to
check every item in Class/@classname, in which case you might want an
xsl:for-each loop over select="Class" and call
        contains(@classname, $vKeyword)
from within the loop.
-- 
Colin Adams
Preston Lancashire

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