Hi,

NOTE: Using MSXML 4 XSLT 1

In the xslt below I need to know whether to add String or Number to the attribute ss:type. i.e

<Data ss:Type="String"> or <Data ss:Type="Number">

Sometimes my xml will contain numbers like 2003 and 2004.

<ColGrp heading="Year">
 <Col heading="2003"/>
 <Col heading="2004"/>
</ColGrp>

or they will contain strings Test A .....

<ColGrp heading="About">
        <Col heading="Test A" />
        <Col heading="Test B" />
        <Col heading="Test C" />
</ColGrp>

In XSLT there isn't a function like isNumber or is String. So how can I achieve that ?

I need to do something like this:
<xsl:if test="@heading is a number ">
<Data ss:Type="Number">
   <xsl:value-of select="@heading"/>
 </Data>
</xsl:if>

XSLT

<Row>
<xsl:for-each select="ancestor::Columns//Col">
<xsl:if test="position()=1">
  <Cell ss:MergeDown="{$colgrps}"/>
</xsl:if>
<Cell ss:MergeAcross="{$countRowSpan}" ss:StyleID="s24">
 <Data ss:Type="String">
   <xsl:value-of select="@heading"/>
 </Data>
</Cell>
</xsl:for-each>
</Row>

The curious expression

number($x) = number($x)

returns true if $x can be converted to a number, and false if it can't.

Or you can write

string(number($x)) = 'NaN'

if that seems less bizarre.

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

Many thanks Michael.