I have a problem that is driving me nuts. I have a fairly flat input file like this:

<Records>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000606</Field1>
        <Field2>00010</Field2>
        <Field9>20060623</Field9>
    </Record>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000606</Field1>
        <Field2>00020</Field2>
        <Field9>20060623</Field9>
    </Record>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000606</Field1>
        <Field2>00060</Field2>
        <Field3>JP02</Field3>
        <Field9>20060624</Field9>
    </Record>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000606</Field1>
        <Field2>00070</Field2>
        <Field9>20060624</Field9>
    </Record>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000607</Field1>
        <Field2>00010</Field2>
        <Field9>20060623</Field9>
    </Record>
    <Record>
        <Field1>8150000607</Field1>
        <Field2>00020</Field2>
        <Field9>20060624</Field9>
    </Record>
</Records>

Field1=PONumber, Field2=LineNumber, Field3=PostingDate

The requirement is to create a new PO whenever the PONumber or Posting Date changes, so that I should have four PO's created.

1 PO for 8150000606/20060623 with lines 00010/00020, 1 PO for 8150000606/20060624 with lines 00060/00070, 1 PO for 8150000607/20060623 with line 00010 and finally 1 po for 8150000607/20060624 with line 00020.

I am checking preceding-sibling::Record/Field1 or preceding-sibling::Record/Field9 to test the level breaks. All works fine, except the last <Record> never gets processed.

I am using xmlSpy debugger to test this, and Xalan when it gets into production.

Am I missing something fundamental?

XSL follows:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output method="xml"/>
    <xsl:template match="/Records">
        <PurchaseOrder>
            <xsl:for-each select="Record[not(Field1 = preceding-sibling::Record/Field1) or not(Field9 = preceding-sibling::Record/Field9)]">
                <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="Field1"/>
                <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="Field9"/>
                <PurchaseOrderHeader>
                    <PurchaseOrderNumber>
                        <xsl:value-of select="Field1"/>
                    </PurchaseOrderNumber>
                    <POCreateDate>
                        <xsl:value-of select="Field9"/>
                    </POCreateDate>
                    <xsl:variable name="Test" select="Field9"/>
                    <xsl:variable name="Test1" select="Field1"/>
                    <xsl:for-each select="/Records/Record[Field1 = $Test1 and Field9 = $Test]">
                        <xsl:call-template name="GetRecords">
                        </xsl:call-template>
                    </xsl:for-each>
                </PurchaseOrderHeader>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </PurchaseOrder>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template name="GetRecords">
        <ProductLineItem>
            <LineNumber>
                <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space(Field2)"/>
            </LineNumber>
        </ProductLineItem>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The expression

Field1 = preceding-sibling::Record/Field1

compares with *all* the preceding siblings and returns true if any one matches. You want

Field1 = preceding-sibling::Record[1]/Field1

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

Michael - Superb. works a treat, and shows a distinct lacking in my interpretation. Cheers!