XSLT

highlife · July 24th, 2003, 10:03 AM

I am writing a XSLT stylesheet to convert XML to HTML (as many people do).

Well my dilema is that I need to output a certain row of a table ONLY the first time the template match occurs.

For example-

xml:
<parent><child>jack</child><child>jill</child><child>joe</child></parent>

html:
<table>
<tr><td>IVE GOT CHILDREN!</td></tr>
<tr><td>jack</td></tr>
<tr><td>jill</td></tr>
<tr><td>joe</td></tr>
</table>

this is what im trying to accomplish, where the "IVE GOT CHILDREN!" displays the first time on the match of child node, however the other two times it does not output.

This is difficult without true "variables" in XSLT.

Please help!

armmarti · July 25th, 2003, 12:37 AM

Hi,

You don't need variables here, just use position() function.

Assuming that the source XML is

Code:

<parent><child>jack</child><child>jill</child><child>joe</child></parent>

two main templates are:

Code:

    <xsl:template match="parent">
        <table>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
        </table>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="child">
        <xsl:if test="position() = 1">
            <tr>
                <td>IVE GOT CHILDREN!</td>
            </tr>
        </xsl:if>
        <tr>
            <td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
        </tr>
    </xsl:template>

Although I would prefer to put the header in the "parenet" template body:

Code:

    <xsl:template match="parent">
        <table>
            <tr>
                <td>IVE GOT CHILDREN!</td>
            </tr>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
        </table>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="child">
        <tr>
            <td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
        </tr>
    </xsl:template>

Regards,
Armen

pgtips · July 25th, 2003, 04:52 AM

Yes but if you're going to include the header in the parent, you should also include a test to make sure there are children before printing the row:

Code:

    <xsl:template match="parent">
        <table>
            <xsl:if test="count(child) &gt; 0">
                <tr>
                    <td>IVE GOT CHILDREN!</td>
                </tr>
            </xsl:if>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
        </table>
    </xsl:template>

armmarti · July 25th, 2003, 06:12 AM

But parents always have child(ren) by definition :)

Yes of course, you are right!

highlife · July 25th, 2003, 07:50 AM

very good

placing it in the parent element worked nicely (with the check for children, which I do need in some cases), but I also learned how to use the position() function which should come in handy later

thank you gentlemen