Changing the Source Document

mphare · March 14th, 2008, 02:01 PM

I may be trying to use XSLT in the wrong way, but I'd like to modify the source document.

I can do this using perl or php with XML/XSLT/XPATH extensions, but I'd rather use XSLT natively because it's more intuitive for this kind of thing.

Basically, I want to use XSLT (well, mostly XPATH) as an intelligent search and replace tool for XML files.

I have this rather large XML file that was generated by Adobe Framemaker. I have another XML file with information in it that I need to merge into the Framemaker XML document. I want to search through the FM document, find a place where information needs to be merged, go get that from the other XML file and place it into the FM file.

I can see how to do it by writing to a 3rd, output document. Except I'd have to write rules for all the structure for the FM document, which means a ton of rules. I'd rather just update the FM document in place.

Is XSLT going to help me here, or should I just write a perl script with xpath extensions?

I hope I'm just missing something very fundamental.

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Michael Hare

mhkay · March 14th, 2008, 02:18 PM

You can't modify a document in place with XSLT. You need to make a modified copy.

You don't need "a ton of rules". You just need one rule for all the elements that don't need to change:

<xsl:template match="*">
  <xsl:copy>
  <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

supplemented by specific rules for the elements that do need to change.

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

mphare · March 14th, 2008, 02:46 PM

That looks pretty fundimental :)
I'll jump right on that and see if I can make it fly.

Thanks Michael!

- m

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Michael Hare