Hi,

I am trying to translate all my symbols back to their Unicode values in my XML using XSLT.

All I mean is that I want to translate all my © into its corresponding unicode values i.e., #x000A9;. Below is my XSLT snippet:

<xsl:template name="escape-copy">
 <xsl:param name="string"/>
<xsl:variable name="copy" select="©" />
<xsl:choose>
 <xsl:when test='contains($string, ©)'>
  <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($string,©)"/>
    <xsl:text>#x000A9;</xsl:text>
    <xsl:call-template name="escape-copy">
     <xsl:with-param name="string" select="substring-after($string, ©)" />
    </xsl:call-template>
 </xsl:when>
 <xsl:otherwise>
  <xsl:value-of select="$string" />
 </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

As soon as try the above code I get an error saying:
"token not recognized".

I understand that may be XSLT processor is not able to read the literal ©, but is there anyway this can done in XSLT. I too have doubt that my code also have errors in it.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Pankaj

__________________
Pankaj

should be
The copyright symbol should be in single quotes, because it is a string literal, not a element name. This same error is repeated with the contains, substring-before and substring-after functions as well.

This is of course assuming that your xslt stylesheet is utf-8 encoded, otherwise you'll need to replace '©' with '&_#x000A9;' (no underscore).

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Unfortunately your terminology is rather confused.

An XSLT stylesheet is an XML document, and in XML, provided you get the character encoding right, © and &_#xa9; (ignore the underscore) are simply different representations of the same character. To an XSLT processor they look exactly the same (the XML parser sorts out the difference. Therefore, XSLT can't be used directly to translate one into the other.

However, if you choose <xsl:output encoding="us-ascii"/>, then the © character cannot be used in the output document, so the serializer is forced to use (something like) &_#xa9; instead.

The errors you are getting for constructs like substring-before($string,©) are simply because you haven't put the character in quotes. You would get a similar syntax error if you wrote substring-before($string,@)

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

Hi,

I've tried it earlier but nothing seems to be working. I had a doubt whether my code is correct. All I am trying to search copyright symbol (©)in XML and replace it with its corresponding value.

Any guidance on it.

Pankaj

If you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do, and you're using XSLT 2.0 then try looking at the <xsl:character-map> declaration.


/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

If your code isn't working then your first step should be to show us your code so we can tell you why it isn't working.

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

No Sam, unfortunately I am using 1.0.

Don't we have any function which simply says read the symbol and translate it into unicode value. I know that translate() function takes the three arguments, i don't know whether its a good idea to use it.


Pankaj

As already mentioned, translate() will not work, its a character for character translation, not a string replacement function (unlike the XPath 2.0 replace() function).

I have to ask - what is your reason for wanting to do this in the first place - why do you need the unicode version in your output.

Have you tried the suggestion from Michael?
/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Ok. Let me more clear. Below is my code. Can somebody guide me where I am wrong:


 <xsl:template name="replace-string">
    <xsl:param name="text"/>
    <xsl:param name="from"/>
    <xsl:param name="to"/>

    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="contains($text, $from)">

    <xsl:variable name="before" select="substring-before($text, $from)"/>
    <xsl:variable name="after" select="substring-after($text, $from)"/>
    <xsl:variable name="prefix" select="concat($before, $to)"/>

    <xsl:value-of select="$before"/>
    <xsl:value-of select="$to"/>
        <xsl:call-template name="replace-string">
      <xsl:with-param name="text" select="$after"/>
      <xsl:with-param name="from" select="$from"/>
      <xsl:with-param name="to" select="$to"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <xsl:value-of select="$text"/>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>


 <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:call-template name="replace-string">
        <xsl:with-param name="text" select="'.'"/>
        <xsl:with-param name="from" select="'©'"/>
        <xsl:with-param name="to" select="&_#x000A9;"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
 </xsl:template>

    <xsl:with-param name="from" select="'©'"/>
    <xsl:with-param name="to" select="&_#x000A9;"/>

I assume you meant

<xsl:with-param name="to" select="'&_#x000A9;'"/>

(without the underscore)

As I tried to explain earlier (but you seemed not to be listening), '©' and '&_#x000A9;' are just two different ways of writing the same character. By the time XSLT sees them, they are identical. It's like typing "A" using the CAPS LOCK key rather than the SHIFT key. Your "from" and "to" characters are therefore the same.

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