create <ul> with alternating class on <li> element

Brian Campbell · November 3rd, 2006, 04:17 PM

using javascript or php this would be no problem, but not sure how to do this with xsl...

i have a list of nodes and for each node i want to create an <li> element. This is already done. However, i want the background color of each of the <li>'s to alternate. My thought is to set a variable, then reset that variable at the end of the loop, but not sure how that's done in xsl...i'd like something like this...

Code:

[list]
<li class="on"></li>
<li class="off"></li>
<li class="on"></li>
etc...
</ul>

joefawcett · November 3rd, 2006, 04:53 PM

The basic technique is to use the position() function, assuming you have called xsl:apply-templates and selected all your li elements. You can use position() mod 2 to determine if it's an odd or even row and set the class accordingly.

--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

mhkay · November 3rd, 2006, 06:07 PM

Don't think in terms of variables and loops, that kind of procedural thinking is too low-level for XSLT. You need to think of the output as a function of the input: the class is "on" for odd-numbered elements and "off" for even-numbered. That translates into

if (position() mod 2) = 1
then "on"
else "off"

Exactly how you express that depends on whether you're using 1.0 or 2.0 and where it fits in your stylesheet code, but I hope you get the idea.

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