I have a configuration file with global and specific settings, i.e.:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<conf>
    <global>
        <settings>
            <service>global service</service>
            <network>global network</network>
            <port>global port</port>
        </settings>
    </global>

    <instance id="1">
        <settings>
            <service>instance service 1</service>
            <daemon>instance deamon 1</daemon>
        </settings>
    </instance>

    <instance id="2">
        <settings>
            <service>instance service 2</service>
            <network>instance network 2</network>
            <daemon>instance deamon 2</daemon>
            <port>instance port 2<port>
        </settings>
    </instance>

    <instance id="3">
        <settings>
            <service>instance service 3</service>
            <network>instance network 3</network>
            <daemon>instance deamon 3</daemon>
        </settings>
    </instance>
</conf>

I want to transform this into a new XML document with settings taken from the global and from a specific instance. The specific instance have to override the global settings so i figured if I take all settings from the specified instance and then append settings from global that are not present in the specific. Below shown how the output would look like if I specified id=1:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<conf>
    <settings>
        <service>instance service 1</service>
        <network>global network</network>
        <port>global port</port>
        <daemon>instance deamon 1</daemon>
    </settings>
</conf>

If I specified id=2:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<conf>
    <settings>
        <service>instance service 2</service>
        <network>instance network 2</network>
        <daemon>instance deamon 2</daemon>
        <port>instance port 2<port>
    </settings>
</conf>

I thougt about using the DOM but I want to learn how I would do in XSLT. Could someone please advice me or give me a hint.

Tnx
/Andrin

Hi Andrin,

the problem interested me actually(there are many situations where the technique will be useful), so I tried to solve it entirely instead of giving a hint ;)

Here is the stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.1" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

    <xsl:param name="id"/>

    <xsl:output indent="yes" method="xml"/>

    <xsl:variable name="global-settings" select="/conf/global/settings/*"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <conf>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="conf/instance[@id = $id]"/>
        </conf>
    </xsl:template>


    <xsl:template match="instance/settings">
        <xsl:variable name="children" select="*"/>
        <xsl:variable name="local-setting-names">
            <xsl:for-each select="$children">
                <xsl:element name="{name(.)}">
                    <xsl:value-of select="name(.)"/>
                </xsl:element>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </xsl:variable>

        <settings>
            <xsl:copy-of select="$children | $global-settings[not(name() = $local-setting-names/*)]"/>
        </settings>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The stylesheet requires RTF-to-nodeset conversion mechanism: I used Saxon 6.5.2 and put the "version" attribute value equal to 1.1 (this is sufficient for Saxon to implicitly perform any such conversion if needed; for other XSLT processors you have to use vendor's node-set(RTF) function explicitly, if it's supported of course). However, it's interesting to see a stylesheet which will solve the probelm without using a temporary tree.

Regards,
Armen

Hi Armen,

Again thanks :-) I also thought that this would be a thing that could be used in many situations. I also thougt that someone must have been in my position before and done this thing.

This example was a little bit easier to understand. At work we are using MSXML and by using the node-set() function as you said it worked. I personaly prefer to use Xalan or Saxon but what to do when ten other persons want to use Microsofts parser ;)

Thanks
/Andrin