I have an xml file that looks like this (vaguely):

<AppvInvDoc>
  <AppvInv ActionCode="U">
    <AH>
      stuff...
    </AH>
    <AL>
      more stuff...
      <AD>
        still more stuff
      </AD>
      <AD>
        still more stuff
      </AD>
    </AL>
    <AL>
      more stuff
      <AD>
        still more stuff
      </AD>
    </AL>
  </AppvInv>
</AppvInvDoc>

I have to use an XSLT to turn this into a flat file. The example above should result in three different lines. For each AD that's processed, I need access to it's parent AL element, and the AH element at the top.

What's the right witches brew of matches, for-eaches and so forth? I've been playing with this for about a day and I can't wrap my head around the answer.

Thanks,

Eric

I'm afraid it's going to be difficult to be more specific without knowing exactly what you want to get from accessing each of these nodes, but in general:

<xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="//AD" />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="/">
    do stuff here
</xsl:template>

will match each of your AD nodes.

Using select="parent::*" within the AD template will select the parent node of the current AD node you are processing.

If you only ever have one AH node then you can always access it with simply //AH (or the full path - i'm just being lazy here).
Personally I wouldn't mix text and elements within a node i.e.

<elem>
   some text
   <an_elem />
</elem>

because it is a pain it the buttski to separate the text later. Depending on the size of the text, consider using an attribute; something like:

<elem some_text="put your text here">
  <an_elem />
</elem>

You can get this out later using select="elem@some_text"

Or putting a different named node above the AD nodes.

I hope that's helpful.

hmk