xml splitting using XSLT

squirt · July 8th, 2008, 12:01 AM

Hello.
I have the task to split up an XML message/file into smaller sets of n number of nodes per message/file. The problem that I am having is that I can get the node at the nth spot, but I can't get the subsequent nodes. For example, the xml file could be:
<?xml version...>
<list>
   <student id=1>
      <name>Bill</name>
   </student>
   <student id=2>
      <name>Tom</name>
   </student>
   <student id=3>
      <name>Gerry</name>
   </student>
   <student id=4>
      <name>Anne</name>
   </student>
</list>

I want to group this so that I have:
<?xml version...>
<list>
   <student id=1>
      <name>Bill</name>
   </student>
   <student id=2>
      <name>Tom</name>
   </student>
</list>

and
<xml version=...>
<list>
   <student id=3>
      <name>Gerry</name>
   </student>
   <student id=4>
      <name>Anne</name>
   </student>
</list>

Now, in my xslt, I have:

<xsl:for-each select="//student>
   <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 0">
         ...do something...

If anyone has done this before or knows of a way to do this, please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
K

Volder · July 8th, 2008, 01:45 AM

first you need to group your elements, you can do this e.g. like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/list">
        <lists>
            <xsl:for-each select="student">
                <xsl:if test="floor(position() div 2) = floor((position()-1) div 2)">
                    <list>
                        <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
                        <xsl:copy-of select="following::student[1]"/>
                    </list>
                </xsl:if>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </lists>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

then, as you need separate XMLs probably you can use smth like <xsl:result-document>: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#element-result-document, which is available from version 2.0

mhkay · July 8th, 2008, 02:23 AM

For groups of size $N

<xsl:template match="list">
  <xsl:for-each select="student[position() mod $N = 0]">
    <list>
      <xsl:copy-of select=".|following-sibling::student[position() < $N]"/>
    </list>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

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

mhkay · July 8th, 2008, 02:29 AM

Correction:

<xsl:for-each select="student[position() mod $N = 1]"

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

squirt · July 8th, 2008, 12:09 PM

Thanks so much guys. That worked perfectly (I used michael's approach).
Kurt...