using xsl:attribute with xsl:for-each

mkzan · June 21st, 2010, 01:04 PM

Hi,

I am attempting to use an xsl:attribute for the the select value of xsl:for-each. The code of my attempt is below.

Code:

<xsl:for-each >
<xsl:attribute name="select">
data/<xsl:value-of select="$XMLNodeName_announcements"/>/announcement
</xsl:attribute>

This fails and complains "Warning: XSLTProcessor::importStylesheet() [xsltprocessor.importstylesheet]: xsl:for-each : select is missing in ". After doing some research I found that XSLT does not support dynamic evaluation of xpaths. I was wondering if someone has an ingenious idea of a work around. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...elect-statment has some information for a related problem, but I had trouble applying the knowledge of that post to my situation. One of the design requirements of the application I am working on is that XML nodes names are configurable.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

mhkay · June 21st, 2010, 01:11 PM

Imaginative, but completely wrong. xsl:attribute creates an attribute node in the result tree, not in the stylesheet.

If you want to construct an XPath expression as a string at run-time and then evaluate it, you need an extension such as saxon:evaluate().

On the other hand if the variable $XMLNodeName_announcements simply holds an element name, you can do

Code:

<xsl:for-each select="data/*[name()=$XMLNodeName_announcements]"/>

.

mkzan · June 21st, 2010, 02:54 PM

Obviously my understanding of XSLT is a little off. This project I am on is the first experience I have with XSLT.

The solution you have for *[name()=$XMLNodeName_announcements] works great. Thanks for the help. If you don't mind clarifying, what is the significance of the * ?

mhkay · June 21st, 2010, 04:22 PM

select="*" would match all child elements of the context node. Adding a predicate in square brackets restricts it to those children that match the predicate, in this case a test on the name.