Need to redirect XML outputted by style sheet back into same style sheet

Kenneth.Dougherty · November 6th, 2009, 11:38 AM

Hello,

The style sheet is changing an attribute from the original XML. It is also creating a report that calls that attribute and printing it out in a .csv. The problem is the report calls the attribute from the original XML when it needs to call the changed attribute.

Can the output XML be redirected back into the style sheet and processed for the .csv report?

Martin Honnen · November 6th, 2009, 11:42 AM

With XSLT 2.0 you can certainly easily create a temporary result and process it further. You only need to be careful that you don't end up with infinite processing, for instance by using different modes for each processing step.
With XSLT 1.0 you would need to use an extension function like exsl:node-set to convert a temporary result in the form of a result tree fragment into a node-set to process it further. Again using modes to distinguish between processing steps makes sense.

Kenneth.Dougherty · November 6th, 2009, 02:38 PM

"With XSLT 2.0 you can certainly easily create a temporary result and process it further."

Sorry, but I am too new to xslt to know how to do that. The document function was recommended to me, and I'll look into that.

Martin Honnen · November 6th, 2009, 02:44 PM

A temporary result is simply a result stored in a variable:

Code:

<xsl:template match="/">
  <xsl:variable name="v1">
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:variable>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="$v1/*" mode="m1"/>
</xsl:template>
<!-- now write templates for the default mode that perform the first step
      and templates for the mode m1 that perform the second step e.g. -->
<xsl:template match="foo">
   <xsl:copy>
     <xsl:attribute name="bar">value</xsl:attribute>
   </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="foo" mode="m1">
  <xsl:value-of select="@bar"/>
</xsl:template>

Kenneth.Dougherty · November 9th, 2009, 04:29 PM

Thanks for the advice.