Parsing string to check for substring

bcamp1973 · June 5th, 2006, 02:34 PM

I'm just starting my foray into the xslt world so bare with me :) I have the following xml...

Code:

<channel>
   <title>parent channel title</title>
   <id>parent id</id>
   <channel>
      <title>child channel title</title>
      <id>child id</id>
   </channel>
   <channel>
      <title>another child channel title></title>
      ...etc.
</channel>

Each parent channel has two sub channels. The titles of the subchannels will contain (but aren't limited to) the strings "Highlights" or "Features". I need to parse the title, check for the existence of either of the two substrings and then take action based on the match. So, in laymans terms i want to do this...

Code:

for-each "sub-channel"
   if "sub-channel" title contains string "highlights"
      <a href="page.php?view=highlights">highlights link</a>
   else if "sub-channel" title contains string "features"
      <a href="page.php?view=features">features link</a>
   /if
/for-each

any tips for a newbie? feel free to dumb down your responses. i'm new to XSLT and scripting/programming in general.

thanks!

mhkay · June 5th, 2006, 02:59 PM

Assuming you're positioned at the parent channel element (this is very important), you can do:

<xsl:for-each select="channel">
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="contains(title, 'highlights')">
      <a href="page.php?view=highlights">highlights link</a>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:when test="contains(title, 'features')">
      <a href="page.php?view=features">features link</a>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
      (optional)
    </xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
</xsl:for-each>

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

bcamp1973 · June 5th, 2006, 06:44 PM

Thanks again Michael!