I'm new to XSL, but we recently got a Google Mini server here and I ran into som e coding issues when trying to customize the XSLT stylesheet. I have been able to find my way around and modify plenty of things but I am having trouble with some custom code...

What I am trying to do is check for a meta tag named gimag and if it exists, display a product image (the value of the meta tag is the image file path.) I have been able to do that fine, but when that meta tag doesn't exist I want to display a transparent image (so all the search results line up correctly.)

Here is what I have so far which isn't working:


<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;td width="67" align="center"&gt;</xsl:text>
<xsl:if test="MT">
<xsl:for-each select="MT">
<xsl:if test="@N='gimage' and @V!=''">
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@N='gimage' and @V!=''">
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;a href=&quot;</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$full_url"/>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&quot;&gt;</xsl:text>
<img align="absmiddle" src="{@V}" height="60" border="0"/><xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;</xsl:text>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;img align="left" src="http://www.atomicpark.com/images/accents/transparent-5x3.gif" width="62" height="60" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;</xsl:text>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:if>

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

Al Dugan
www.atomicpark.com

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Al Dugan
www.atomicpark.com

get rid of your outer
<xsl:if test="@N='gimage' and @V!=''">

you're already doing that test in your <xsl:when statement.

I get funky results when I do that... but I do think you are right, there's just something else wrong too... the transparent image does end up showing when I do that but it shows like 7 times???

I think it is because that <xsl:if test="MT"> finds all the meta tags not just gimage??? That's the only way I can figure why the transparent image would display multiple times.

Al Dugan
www.atomicpark.com

This kind of XSLT code is horrible, it's an abuse of the language. disable-output-escaping is a hack which is intended for quite exceptional situations, like dealing with input that has been double-escaped. Using it as the routine way of creating elements and attributes is just a crazy way of coding.

I'm sorry, if you didn't write this code then this isn't a very helpful response, but my own approach to code like this is that I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, and I'd recommend you do the same.

Do some googling around "disable-output-escaping considered harmful"

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

Hmmm... that's interesting. You would think a huge company like Google would do things correctly. (This section of code was put together by myself with sections from a forum post at Google. Also, even the default XSLT for the Google mini is full of disable-output-escaping.)

Al Dugan
www.atomicpark.com

In my experience, the bigger the company, the more likely they are to do things wrong.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

So is there a way to do this portion of the code right without having to rewrite the entire stylesheet? I can understand how you would be bothered by code "hacks" being the professional that you are... but in my case I just want this to work. I have no plans on becoming a seasoned XSL programmer. I'm an SEO and I'm just trying to make our internal search results look top notch.

See where I'm coming from?;)

Al Dugan
www.atomicpark.com

Yes, I see your problem. But I'm not interested in helping you with it. Sorry!

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference