Hi,

given the following xml fragment:

<page/>
<paragraph>
  some paragraph text
</paragraph>
<paragraph>
  more paragraph text
  <page/>
  even more paragraph text
</paragraph>

is it possible and how can I use xslt to produce this result:

<table><tr><td>
  <p> some paragraph text </p>
  <p> more paragraph text </p>
</td></tr><tr><td>
  <p> even more paragraph text </p>
</td></tr></table>


thanks,

jz

YOu need to explain what the rules are behind the transformation. Why does the third para go in a new table row, while the second goes in the same row as the first? Is it something to do with the empty page elements?

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

yes, the empty page elements in the source document are essentially markers marking where a new page sits for reference purposes. The problem is some paragraphs start at the bottom of a page and finish at the top of the next page. However, I need to keep the paragraphs together in the source document.

My current thinking is that I could walk the tree with following-sibling but how do I only walk the tree as far as the next <page/> whether it is a child of a paragraph or a sibling...

This is a "positional grouping" problem. All grouping problems are best tackled using XSLT 2.0, which offers <xsl:for-each-group group-starting-with="page"> to address this need.

In 1.0 the techniques are basically:

(a) recursive traversal of the sibling axis (typically using xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::*[1]")

(b) treating it as a value-based grouping problem (using any of the techniques for value-based grouping) with generate-id(preceding-sibling::page[1]) as the grouping key.

Searching for "XSLT positional grouping" might help, also see http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/N4486.html#d5171e424

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

that's great! thanks for the help.
jz