Hello ,

I have a requirement to convert an xml document to another xml document using xslt. I am new to xml and xslt and need your help in solving this problem.

I have a xml file which looks like below
<Vendor>
<contact Id="1234" CmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl">
   <Phone Number="555-5555" Type="WorkPhone"/>
</Contact>
<contact Id="1234" CmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl">
   <Phone Number="666-6666" Type="WorkPhone"/>
</Contact>
<contact Id="1234" CmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl">
   <Phone Number="999-9999" Type="WorkPhone"/>
</Contact>
</Vendor>

Since the attributes in the contact element, Id,CmpnyNm and ContactNm are same for the three recs and only the phone number is different, I want to have the 3 phone numbers under one contact element itself.

Please see below how I need to have the output xml.

<vendor>
<contact Id="1234" cmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl">
   <Phone Number="555-5555" Type="WorkPhone"/>
   <Phone Number="666-6666" Type="WorkPhone"/>
   <Phone Number="999-9999" Type="WorkPhone"/>
</Contact>
</Vendor>

Is it possible to have the output in this format?. I tried xslt but looks like it needs complex logic in the xslt to achieve the output, but unfortunately I am not good at xml and xslt.

Any help in solving this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Manoj

This is a standard grouping problem. In XSLT 2.0 you can solve such problems using <xsl:for-each-group>, for example

<xsl:template match="Vendor">
  <vendor>
     <xsl:for-each-group select="contact" group-by="@Id">
       <contact>
         <xsl:copy-of select="@*, current-group()/Phone"/>
       </contact>
     </xsl:for-each-group>
  </vendor>
</xsl:template>

Grouping problems are much more difficult in XSLT 1.0, but there is a standard coding pattern called Muenchian grouping for solving them; you can find details in any good XSLT book or at http://www.jenitennison.com/xslt/grouping

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

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your quick response. I will try to create the xslt based on your recommendation and give it a try.

Thanks again
Manoj

Hello Folks,
First of all My thanks to Mike for the tip with jennitennison portal link. I was able to get the grouping done for my input xml. I am getting stuck with the tags and I need help with your expertise

For my input which I described above(starting of this post) I created the following XSLT file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" version="1.0"/>


<xsl:key name="contacts-by-id" match="Contact" use="@Id" />
<xsl:template match="Vendor">

Vendor <br/>

    <xsl:for-each select="Contact[count(. | key('contacts-by-id', @Id)[1]) = 1]">
    Contact Id="<xsl:value-of select="@Id" />" CmpnyNm="<xsl:value-of select="@CmpnyNm"/>" ContactNm="<xsl:value-of

select="@ContactNm"/>" <br/>
        <xsl:for-each select="key('contacts-by-id', @Id)">
            Phone Number="<xsl:value-of select="Phone/@Number" />" Type="<xsl:value-of select="Phone/@Type"/>" <br/>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:for-each>
Vendor
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

For the Above XSLT the output looks like

Vendor
contact Id="1234" cmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl"
   Phone Number="555-5555" Type="WorkPhone"
   Phone Number="666-6666" Type="WorkPhone"
   Phone Number="999-9999" Type="WorkPhone"
Contact

Vendor

As you can see, for some reason it is not populating the tags even when I mentioned output method="xml". I want the open and close tags for the output to look like expected output xml I described above(starting of this post). Is it possible to get that?.
I tried many ways(In Some cases I got xslt error and in some cases there was no output) and after googling a lot nothing worked out. So
wanted to try with you guys.

Note: I was able to get it this way, but I want the attributes to be enclosed in the < /> tags.

<contact>Id="1234" cmpnyNm="ABC" ContactNm="Sheryl"
<Phone>Number="555-5555" Type="WorkPhone"</Phone>
<Phone>Number="666-6666" Type="WorkPhone"</Phone>
.
.
</Contact>

Thanks for your help.
Manoj

look for <xsl:attribute> element.

Astounding! - you've got Muenchian grouping to work, but you don't know how to output elements and attributes. Talk of running before you've learnt to walk...

This line

    Contact Id="<xsl:value-of select="@Id" />" CmpnyNm="<xsl:value-of select="@CmpnyNm"/>" ContactNm="<xsl:value-of

select="@ContactNm"/>"

should look like this:

<Contact Id="{@Id}" CmpnyNm="{@CmpnyNm}" ContactNm="{@ContactNm}"/>

and similar changes elsewhere.



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

Hi Mike,

Mostly Concentrated on working on the grouping and did not knew much about the xsl:attribute element.

I got it working with the <xsl:attribute> element.

Thanks a lot Volder and Mike for your inputs and help.

Manoj