Filling the gaps of rowspan/colspan sources

maikm · August 27th, 2008, 02:14 AM

Hi again,

consider the following simplified source example, using Saxon B9 for transformation:

Code:

<table>
  <tr>  <td>11</td>    <td>12</td>                    <td>13</td>  </tr>
  <tr>  <td colspan="2">21+22</td>                    <td>23</td>  </tr>
  <tr>  <td>31</td>    <td rowspan="2">32+42</td>     <td>33</td>  </tr>
  <tr>  <td>41</td>                                   <td>43</td>  </tr>
  <tr>  <td colspan="2" rowspan="2">51+52+61+62</td>  <td>53</td>  </tr>
  <tr>                                                <td>63</td>  </tr>
</table>

For my target application, I need to output something for every table cell, including those that are omitted in HTML because of the rowspan/colspan args. Just adding empty <td/> tags in the places where 22, 42, 52, 61 and 62 would be (violating HTML semantics) would be fine for that purpose, so that all rows would have a constant number of td tags.

The colspan part alone was easy, but rowspan is trickier, and the combination of both even more. I tried XPath expressions like

Code:

parent::node()/preceding-sibling::node()/td[position()=$mypos]

to access td tags in previous rows, but I'm somehow stuck thinking further (not that much experience with functional programming).

How would you do that?

Thanks in advance
Maik

mhkay · August 27th, 2008, 03:15 AM

I'm afraid this one isn't easy - it will take a lot longer than the minute or two I allow myself for giving unpaid help to people.

I think my first approach would be to try to build an unsorted collection of table cells each of the form <cell row="6" col="2"/>, and then sort them by row and then column. When you encounter a rowspan, generate all the relevant cells with their row and column number, and don't bother that they are out of order; they will be sorted into the right place in the second phase.

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

maikm · August 27th, 2008, 03:28 AM

Hello Michael,

that sounds like a good approach, I'll try that.

Would it be possible for you to do this as paid work if I fail? :)

Maik

mhkay · August 27th, 2008, 03:36 AM

>Would it be possible for you to do this as paid work if I fail? :)

Sure. Contact me off-list. [email protected]

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