Nested xsl:if test= with position()

spinout · March 5th, 2009, 10:05 AM

Hi All,

I'm having trouble with an xsl:if test and the position function that I haven't been able to work out. I'm first testing to see if an element in my XML contains either 'Y' or 'N' and then want to return the first 5 records that match the first test criteria.

Code:

<xsl:if test="contains(deleted,'N') and position() &lt; 5">

The problem is that if there are no elements in the top 5 that are 'N' it returns nothing. The result I'm trying to achieve is that the XSL will return the first 5 it finds that are 'N' regardless of their position in the XML document and not to only test the top 5 records.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer :)

Martin Honnen · March 5th, 2009, 10:13 AM

If you want to output the first five 'foo' elements for which the condition holds then try

Code:

<xsl:copy-of select="foo[contains(deleted, 'N')][position() &lt; 6]"/>

So basically put the position check into a second predicate after the predicate with the first condition.

spinout · March 5th, 2009, 10:30 AM

Thanks!! Problem solved. That's been driving me nuts for a week and it was something so simple. I actually removed my xsl:if and updated my existing xsl:for-each select="" with what you suggested.

What's the difference between xsl:for-each select="" and xsl:copy-of select="" ??

Thanks again :)

Martin Honnen · March 5th, 2009, 10:38 AM

xsl:copy-of will simply copy the selected nodes to the result tree. With xsl:for-each you process the selected nodes and the contents of the xsl:for-each element defines the output for each processed node.

spinout · March 5th, 2009, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Honnen

xsl:copy-of will simply copy the selected nodes to the result tree. With xsl:for-each you process the selected nodes and the contents of the xsl:for-each element defines the output for each processed node.

Nice one! Thanks very much for that, your suggestion worked perfectly! Have a good day!