XSLT for Variable Child Nodes

jlagedo · September 10th, 2006, 01:11 AM

Ok, I'm tried really hard to figure out this. I'm developing a php aplication and decided to try to make a XSLT based datagrid.

I'm generating my XML from a Script, this means, The XSL must read n colluns

A xml like this

Code:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
- <grid>
- <iten>
  <id>1</id> 
  <nome>Jo?o Amaro Lagedo</nome> 
  <tel_residencial>2425-3352</tel_residencial> 
  <tel_comercial>5551-5545</tel_comercial> 
  <data_nascimento>2006-09-09</data_nascimento> 
  </iten>
+ <iten>
  <id>2</id> 
  <nome>Neyde De Almeida Ferreida</nome> 
  <tel_residencial>555-58585</tel_residencial> 
  <tel_comercial /> 
  <data_nascimento>2006-09-09</data_nascimento> 
  </iten>
- <iten>
  <id>3</id> 
  <nome>Nilma Almeida Ferreira</nome> 
  <tel_residencial>256-1248</tel_residencial> 
  <tel_comercial /> 
  <data_nascimento>2006-09-09</data_nascimento> 
  </iten>
  </grid>

and XSL

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

        <xsl:template match="/">
          <html>
          <body>
            <h2>My Itens</h2> 
            <table border="1">
              <tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
                <th align="left">id</th> 
                <th align="left">nome</th> 
                <th align="left">tel_residencial</th>             
                <th align="left">tel_comercial</th> 
                <th align="left">data_nascimento</th>                         
              </tr>
              <xsl:for-each select="grid/iten">
              <tr>
 /* Its here... I need to loop these nodes, instead of calling 
them by their names, so I can use a xslt file for any xml in my
 system */
                <td><xsl:value-of select="id" /></td>
                <td><xsl:value-of select="nome" /></td>
                <td><xsl:value-of select="tel_residencial" /></td>
                <td><xsl:value-of select="tel_comercial" /></td>
                <td><xsl:value-of select="data_nascimento" /></td>

              </tr>
              </xsl:for-each>
          </table>
          </body>
          </html>
        </xsl:template>        
</xsl:stylesheet>

Is there anyway a xsl can deal with dynamic xls ? I mean I need to add more nodes or remove, help ;) ?

EDIT: Nevermind... I found the solution in a very old post

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

        <xsl:template match="/">
          <html>
          <body>
            <h2>My Itens</h2> 
            <table border="1">
              <tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
                <th align="left">id</th> 
                <th align="left">nome</th> 
                <th align="left">tel_residencial</th>             
                <th align="left">tel_comercial</th> 
                <th align="left">data_nascimento</th>                         
              </tr>
              <xsl:for-each select="grid/iten">
              <tr>
                  <xsl:for-each select="descendant::*">
                    <td>
                        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                    </td>
                </xsl:for-each>
              </tr>
              </xsl:for-each>
          </table>
          </body>
          </html>
        </xsl:template>        
</xsl:stylesheet>

joefawcett · September 10th, 2006, 02:53 AM

Well you'd need to loop through the first block of iten child elements using their names to create the headers. For this you will need to take advantage of templates with a specific mode. Possibly you want to transform to add capitals and spaces, e.g. data_nascimento => Data Nascimento. There are some example templates that do this on the web.

You then need to loop through all the iten elements to output the data, using a template with a different mode from that above.

Some of the problems here show why the structure you have as your source is not ideal. A better one would be to use something like:

Code:

<grid xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <iten>
    <row friendlyName="id" sourceName="id" dataType="xs:integer">1</row>
<row friendlyName="Data Nascimento" sourceName="data_nascimento" dataType="xs:dateTime"></row>

  </row>
</grid>

This gives you all the information you need for display and formatting of the columns.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

jlagedo · September 10th, 2006, 03:00 AM

Wow, that's really refreshing, that estructure probally solves many of my problems,
REally thanks ;)