Hi,

I am writing XSL transformation to transform XML to XML. Everything works fine.

But the problem is, when I transformed the XML, some of the lines in the transformed XML have only XML tags. There is no text on that line other than XML tags.

For example:

<orderedlist numeration="arabic" inheritnum="ignore" continuation="restarts"><listitem><inst aid:cstyle="NL_NUM"> 1. </inst><para aid:pstyle="SF1_NL_FIRST">Use Appendix A.</para></listitem>
<listitem><inst aid:cstyle="NL_NUM"> 2. </inst><para aid:pstyle="SF1_NL_MID">Locate and print.</para></listitem>
<listitem><inst aid:cstyle="NL_NUM"> 5. </inst><para aid:pstyle="SF1_NL_LAST">Try answering the questions below.</para>
<itemizedlist mark="bull"><listitem><para aid:pstyle="SF1_BL_FIRST">• What overlap do you notice?</para></listitem>
<listitem><para aid:pstyle="SF1_BL_MID">• Choose one standard from INTASC.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para aid:pstyle="SF1_BL_LAST">• Can you see where studying.</para></listitem></itemizedlist>
</listitem>
</orderedlist></division></feature></section></section></section>


When we see the above XML, the last two lines are only having XML tags. I don't want to generate the XML in this way. All this tags should be merged with the line before it (or) after it.

Is it possible in XSLT.

Please provide the solution.

Thanks,
Krish

Whitespace between tags like that is generally considered insignificant by most processors, so I really wouldn't worry about it unless this is having some actual effect on your processing.

You can get rid of it if you control your XSLT very carefully, but seeing as you haven't posted any of your XSLT its hard to say how.

__________________
/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Think before you post: What have you tried?

The newline characters that you want to get rid of them can come from one of three places:

(a) they might be copied from the source document
(b) they might be copied from the stylesheet
(c) they might be generated by indent="yes" in the serialization options

(c) is unlikely in this case because it would apply elsewhere too. So you need to look at your XSLT code, decide whether it's (a) or (b), and fix your code accordingly. We can't help you with that if you don't show us your code.

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

Hi,

Here is my sample XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><people>
<person><name>
<first>Bob</first>
<last>Toddson</last></name>
<acct-no>327598</acct-no>
<fav-color hex="#ff0000">Red</fav-color>
</person>
<person><name>
<first>Phillip</first>
<last>Cardwell</last>
</name>
<acct-no>258929</acct-no>
<fav-color hex="#d2b48c">Tan</fav-color>
</person></people>


My XSLT is:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" xml:space="default"/>
<xsl:template match="*|@*|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*[not(name()='aidpstyle')]|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="first">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:attribute name="aid_cstyle">FIRST</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="last">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:attribute name="aid_cstyle">LAST</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="acct-no">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:attribute name="aid_cstyle">ACCT-NO</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="fav-color">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:attribute name="aid_cstyle">FAV-COLOR</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*|@*|comment()|processing-instruction()|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output XML is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><people>
<person><name>
<first aid_cstyle="FIRST">Bob</first>
<last aid_cstyle="LAST">Toddson</last></name>
<acct-no aid_cstyle="ACCT-NO">327598</acct-no>
<fav-color aid_cstyle="FAV-COLOR" hex="#ff0000">Red</fav-color>
</person>
<person><name>
<first aid_cstyle="FIRST">Phillip</first>
<last aid_cstyle="LAST">Cardwell</last>
</name>
<acct-no aid_cstyle="ACCT-NO">258929</acct-no>
<fav-color aid_cstyle="FAV-COLOR" hex="#d2b48c">Tan</fav-color>
</person></people>


When we look the output XML, the tag
</person>
<person><name>
is on two separate line. I dont want these tags to be on its own line. This lines should be merged with its above line <fav-color aid_cstyle="FAV-COLOR" hex="#ff0000">Red</fav-color>


Please help me to write XSLT to achive this.

Thanks,
krish

The whitespace is being copied faithfully from your source document to your output document by the processor.

You can use the <xsl:strip-space elements="people"/> instruction to strip insignificant whitespace from within the <people> element. This may still not produce the exact effect you are after, in which case you will have to write a specific template for the <people> element to handle it how you want.

I still don't see what problem the whitespace is likelyto be causing you - you have lots of other whitespace elsewhere (such as after the opening <people> tag) - why is this presenting you with an issue? Because if you just don't like how it looks you really shouldn't bother.

__________________
/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Think before you post: What have you tried?

Hi,

The actual problem is, when I import the XML into the Indesign document all this xml tags are come in separate line.

So when I look the Indesign document it have have empty lines (line without text) between the paragrahs. I want to remove this blank lines in Indesign document.

This is the exact reason for avoiding XML tags on its own line.

Thanks,
krish

Well you can simply get rid of all insignificant whitespace by using

<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

Then you shouldn't have any problems.

__________________
/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Think before you post: What have you tried?

Hi,

When I followed you suggession, all the tags and text are comes in a single line.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><people><person><name><first aid_cstyle="FIRST">Bob</first><last aid_cstyle="LAST">Toddson</last></name><acct-no aid_cstyle="ACCT-NO">327598</acct-no><fav-color aid_cstyle="FAV-COLOR" hex="#ff0000">Red</fav-color></person><person><name><first aid_cstyle="FIRST">Phillip</first><last aid_cstyle="LAST">Cardwell</last></name><acct-no aid_cstyle="ACCT-NO">258929</acct-no><fav-color aid_cstyle="FAV-COLOR" hex="#d2b48c">Tan</fav-color></person></people>

I just want to remove the line where there is no actual text and there is only XML element.

Is this possible in XSLT.

Thanks,
krish

Yes, which is exactly what you have done.

__________________
/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

Think before you post: What have you tried?

Thanks for you help samjudson.

Regards,
krish