(newbie) using a variable

ypomonh · April 8th, 2007, 04:53 PM

I have this simple XML:

Code:

<info>
    <uid>
        <from_session>1002</from_session>
    </uid>
    <userlist>
        <users>
            <user>
                <uid>1001</uid>
                <group>group1</group>
            </user>
            <user>
                <uid>1002</uid>
                <group>group2</group>
            </user>
        </users>
    </userlist>
</info>

and want to get the content of <group> for <user> that has <uid> equal to <from_session>, so I tried this:

Code:

<xsl:variable name="session_uid" select="/info/uid/from_session"/>
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <group>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="/info/userlist/users/user[uid='{$session_uid}']/group"/>
        </group>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="group">
        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </xsl:template>

but it doesn't work :(

Is there a way to do it..?

mhkay · April 8th, 2007, 05:04 PM

You're making things too complicated. Replace:

'{$session_uid}'

by

$session_uid

A couple of points:

(a) curly braces are never used inside an XPath expression, they are only used to surround an XPath expression that is embedded in literal characters (an "attribute value template")

(b) variables in XPath don't work by textual substitution. A variable reference like $x is an expression and it can be used everywhere (and only where) an expression can appear. For example if $x holds a string then you can use it wherever you might validly use a string literal such as 'thing'.

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

ypomonh · April 9th, 2007, 05:13 AM

This works fine. I appreciate the time you spent to answer and give my these tips :)

Andy-7M · May 5th, 2007, 12:06 AM

Will hi-jack the thread with similar question.

What the problem in defining a variable like this:

Code:

<xsl:variable name="lang_hu" select="//identificationInfo//title[@locale="#xpointer(//*[@id='hu'])"]"/>

Xalan processor doesn't like the middle of the bolded part:
Element type "xsl:variable" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>".

Tried and changed the attribute to:

Code:

@locale='#xpointer(//*[@id='hu'])']

Still no luck...

mhkay · May 5th, 2007, 02:21 AM

>select="//identificationInfo//title[@locale="#xpointer(//*[@id='hu'])"]"

XML doesn't allow quotes within an attribute value (when the attribute value is delimited by quotes) unless escaped as "

>
@locale='#xpointer(//*[@id='hu'])']

XPath does not allow ' within a string literal (when the string literal is delimited by ')

The best way to do this is

<xsl:variable name="s">#xpointer(//*[@id='hu'])</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="lang_hu" select="//identificationInfo//title[@locale=$s]"/>

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

Andy-7M · May 5th, 2007, 02:34 AM

Thanks Mike, everything's OK, I'm done with that at the moment.