Recursive Template Help

bucky483 · July 20th, 2007, 10:15 AM

Hello all,

I am trying to transform the following XML into the HTML format below. The basic flow of it should go as follows, I believe.

1.If node contains children call template-GetAllChildren.
2.Get each child that doesn't have a child of its own.
3.If you come across a child that contains it's own child then end the current table </table> and start a new <fieldset> with <legend>.

XML:

Code:

<Person>
    <ID Number>777-77-7777</ID Number>
    <Name>
        <FirstName>Matt</FirstName>
        <LastName>Doe</LastName>
    </Name>
    <Address>XXXX</Address>
    <City>Miami</City>
    <State>FL</State>
    <Zip>99999</Zip>
</Person>

Desired HTML Format:

Code:

<html>
    <body>
        <fieldset>
            <legend>Person</legend>
            <table>
                <tr>
                    <td>ID Number</td>
                    <td>777-77-7777</td>
                </tr>
            </table>
                <fieldset>
                    <legend>Name</legend>
                    <table>
                        <tr>
                            <td>FirstName</td>
                            <td>Matt</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>LastName</td>
                            <td>Doe</td>
                        </tr>
                    </table>
                </fieldset>            
            <table>
                <tr>
                    <td>Address</td>
                    <td>XXXX</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>City</td>
                    <td>Miami</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>State</td>
                    <td>FL</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>Zip</td>
                    <td>99999</td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </fieldset>
    </body>
</html>

XSL Template: (not working correctly)

Code:

<xsl:template name="FindAllChildren">

    <xsl:for-each select="(child::*)">

        <xsl:if test="not(child::*)">
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>        
                </td>
            </tr>
        </xsl:if>

        <xsl:if test="(child::*)">
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <fieldset>
                        <legend>
                            <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>
                        </legend>
                        <table>
                            <xsl:call-template name="FindAllChildren">
                            </xsl:call-template>    
                        </table>
                    </fieldset>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </xsl:if>

    </xsl:for-each>            
</xsl:template>

Thanks,

Matt

mhkay · July 20th, 2007, 12:21 PM

Firstly, you need to learn how to use match templates and xsl:apply-templates. By ignoring these facilities you are working with one hand tied behind your back.

Secondly, you need to understand that you are writing nodes to a tree, not tags to a text file. This kind of thing doesn't make sense: "then end the current table </table> and start a new <fieldset> ". That's not the kind of operation XSLT does. Instructions in XSLT write nodes, and you can't write half a node.

What you seem to be doing here is adjacency grouping - group a maximal sequence of elements having some common property into a wrapper element. The property in question is having (or not-having) a child element. That's easily done in XSLT 2.0 with group-adjacent:

<xsl:for-each-group select="*" group-adjacent="exists(*)">
  <xsl:choose>
     <xsl:when test="current-grouping-key()">
        <table>
          <xsl:apply-templates/>
        </table>
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise>
        <fieldset>
           <xsl:apply-templates/>

Doing the same thing in 1.0 is much more difficult.

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