Hi everybody,

I'm working with XSLT for a long time now, so I'm no newbie. (for the case that there is only an advanced solution then I'm able to understand it).
I'm currently working on a transformation from XML to XML based on XSLT 2.0. I got a problem, that is a little tricky. For one part of the problem there is a workaround, but for the second part I need some advice.

Say, I've got an element in my source-file that has a structure like this:

<element a1="v1" a2="v2" a3="v3" a4="v4" a5="v5" a6="v6" />

All attributes are optional!
I need a transformation that creates nested elements from the attributes. The order is not important.

So, what I need looks like this for example:

<element>
  <a1>
    <a2>
      <a3>
        <a5>
          <a6>
          </a6>
        </a5>
      </a3>
    <a2>
  </a1>
</element>

I could not find a normal way to do this with standard xslt-mechanisms because if I use a simple template that match the attributes like:
<xsl:template match="element/@*">...</xsl:template>
then I don't get nested elements. That's clear.

It does not work neither when you use a single template for each attribute like:
<xsl:template match="element/@a1">
  <xsl:apply-templates select="???"/>
</xsl:template>
because what should '???' be? (Attributes have no siblings.)
But you could use:
<xsl:template match="element/@a1">
  <xsl:variable name="attname"><xsl:value-of select="name()"/></xsl:variable>
  <xsl:apply-templates select="../@*[name()!=$attname]"/>
</xsl:template>
But with this solution you get an infinite loop.
So the only way would be to note all attributes that were processed and always make a comparison if an attribute was already processed. Am I right?

Second solution:
<xsl:template match="element">
  <xsl:if test="@a1">

  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test="@a2">

  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test="@a3">

  </xsl:if>

  <xsl:if test="@a3">

  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test="@a2">

  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test="@a1">

  </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

But it is not possible to create a single start-tag here and an end-tag there, because the n the stylesheet is not wellformed!
Solution:
Create start-tag like this:
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;a1&gt;</xsl:text>
and create end-tag like this:
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;/a1&gt;</xsl:text>

This solution would be ok if I just want to write the output to a file.
My problem is, that I want to keep everything as real Nodesets inside a variable and work with it later.
If I do it this way I don't get Element-Nodes.

Does anyone have a good idea? Thanks in advance.

Erik

How about:

<xsl:template match="element">
  <xsl:call-template name="att">
    <xsl:with-param name="atts" select="@*"/>
  </xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="att">
  <xsl:param name="atts"/>
  <xsl:if test="$atts">
    <xsl:element name="{$atts[1]/name()}">
      <xsl:call-template name="att">
        <xsl:with-param name="atts" select="$atts[position() != 1]"/>
      </
    </
  </
</

As it happens, this is pure XSLT 1.0.

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

"Sometimes you one can't see the wood for the trees"

Now I'm a little embarrassed. So simple.
Thanx a lot for your reply, Michael Kay.
Another question:
I'm interested in approved xslt-patterns (similar to GOF-Patterns) concerning performance, standard-problems ...
(Your solution could be the pattern: "Transforming Attributes to Elements")
Is somebody working on this or is anybody interested in participating?

Erik