putting xml data in a html <table>

rev · September 4th, 2003, 07:17 PM

i am new to XSLT and I am experiencing a quite tricky problem.
i have a xml file that is structured as shown below:

<booklist>
<book>
<title>Title of the book <subtitle>Subtitle of the book </subtitle></title>
</book></booklist>

I want to list the titles of all books in a table. Title and subtitle of the book should reside in the same cell (<td>). The title should be bold (<b>) but the subtitle should not be emphasized. That's the XSLT file for it. The problem is that the <b> tag for the title does also affect the subtitle because it is a child of it. Can anybody tell me how I have to change my XSLT? Or is not possible to create the table in the manner I want to do it?

A second question: Does it in general make sense to use a hierarchy like that

<title>Title of the book <subtitle>Subtitle of the book </subtitle></title>

in an XML file (i.e. to have elements that can contain text and child elements.) or would it be better to make these elements siblings or use attributes.

Hope I could make myself understood - otherwise just ask.
thanx for anybody who is taking the time to write a response.

cu,
thomas

THIS IS MY (NOT PROPERLY WORKING) XSL(T) FILE:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
     <xsl:template match="booklist">
        <html>
            <head/>
            <body><table border="1">
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </table></body>
        </html>
    </xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="book">
<tr><td> <xsl:apply-templates select="title"/></td> </tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="title">
    <b><xsl:value-of select="."/></b> <br></br>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="subtitle">
<xsl:value-of select="subtitle"/>
</xsl:template>

pgtips · September 5th, 2003, 04:03 AM

To answer your 2nd question first, personally I can't see any reason to embed the subtitle inside the title - it will just cause all sorts of problems. I would change it to:
<booklist>
<book>
<title>Title of the book</title>
<subtitle>Subtitle of the book </subtitle>
</book>
</booklist>

If you make this change you will find that your XSLT is not tricky at all :)

rgds
Phil

joefawcett · September 5th, 2003, 04:47 AM

I agree about the structure, you'd be better off having them as siblings. As to the XSLT try this:

Code:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
     <xsl:template match="booklist">
        <html>
            <head/>
            <body><table border="1">
                <xsl:apply-templates select="book"/> 
            </table></body>
        </html>
    </xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="book">     
 <tr><td> <xsl:apply-templates select="title"/></td> </tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="title">
    <b><xsl:value-of select="."/></b> <br/>
       <xsl:value-of select="subtitle"/> 
</xsl:template>

--

Joe

planoie · September 5th, 2003, 08:24 AM

Here's the rule of thumb that I go by. I found this in some documentation or white paper or something discussing XML structure.

When do I use a node?: When there will be more than one occurrence of a particular entity (in your case book(s)).
When do I use an attribute?: When the entity is a property of it's parent item. One exception I make is if said entity is going to be very large or some other special case (CDATA).

So you should probably structure your XML like so:

Code:

<booklist>
    <book title="Title of the book" subtitle="Subtitle of the book" />
    [n... <book />]
</booklist>

Obviously, my guidelines are only a suggestion, but regardless of that, you should always stay away from having a node which contains both inner text and child nodes.

Peter

rev · September 10th, 2003, 08:49 AM

thanks for your suggestions.
i have changed the structure of my xml. much easier to handle now.

rgds,
thomas