Field content prefixes in output xml?

CAMc · February 16th, 2011, 11:50 AM

Hello!

I am a complete newcomer to both these forums and to xslt. I work with library metadata. In fact, I am trying to figure out if an xslt stylesheet can solve my xml conversion problems. If so, I will work on learning enough xslt to hack an existing sheet. I apologize if this question is basic or obvious, but I am only self- taught in programing, so I don't have the world's best theoretical background.

I need to convert MARC xml into OAI-DC xml. If these mean nothing to you, just think of them as xml1 and xml2. Then I will feed xml2 into a pre-existing database. I cannot touch the database coding (the server is not in my direct control). Nor can I change the creation of the xml1 file. I want to use a xslt stylesheet to add prefixes and suffixes to the CONTENT of the data fields in xml1. I am not talking about namespace prefixes. Can I use xslt to do this? or do I need to look at Xpath?

For example, I have existing records:

<a1>Patton</a1>
<b1>URL</b1>

I want as an output:
<a2>Title: Patton</a2>
<b2><a href="URL">URL</a></b2>
I will use the reference entities for [<a href="URL">URL</a>].

Should this work? Either the first transformation or the second, using html tags? I know that the solution is not elegant. However, I am working with large amount of records, some in proprietary databases. I can't even directly fool with the eventual web-page code, it all has to go through an interface which can only bulk upload record field data. Such is the world of libraries.

Thanks for any help you can give,
CAMc

Martin Honnen · February 16th, 2011, 11:57 AM

Code:

<xsl:template match="a1">
  <a2>
    <xsl:text>Title: </xsl:text>
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </a2>
</xsl:template>

should do for the 'a1' elements.

Code:

<xsl:template match="b1">
  <b2>
    <a href="{.}">
      <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </a>
  </b2>
</xsl:template>

should do for the 'b1' elements.

CAMc · February 16th, 2011, 12:07 PM

Thank you so much. I appreciate not only the answer (that it could be done) but the code. I should be able to integrate these fixes into the xslt sheet without much difficulty. And I am very happy that I haven't been wasting my work time with xslt!