Hello,

I am a newbee to the xslt and have an awkward problem which I spent many hours to solve but could not reach to a conclusion. Thanks in advance for any help.

I have an xml document like this:

<root>

<ELEMENT id="1" >

<CHILD name="aaa">
<EMPLOYEE>Mark</EMPLOYEE>
<EMPLOYEE>John</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>

<CHILD name="bbb">
<EMPLOYEE>Tom</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>

</ELEMENT>


<ELEMENT id="2" >

<CHILD name="aaa">
<EMPLOYEE>leo</EMPLOYEE>
<EMPLOYEE>Jason</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>


</ELEMENT>

<ELEMENT id="1" >

<CHILD name="aaa">
<EMPLOYEE>Tim</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>


</ELEMENT>

</root>

What I try to do is collecting "EMPLOYEE"s having same "ELEMENT" id and "CHILD" name together and removing duplicate "ELEMENT"s and "CHILD"s.

I mean I need only one <ELEMENT id="1" > having only one <CHILD name="aaa"> but with all employees belonging to id=1 name=aaa. Resulting file should look like:


<ELEMENT id="1" >

<CHILD name="aaa">
<EMPLOYEE>Mark</EMPLOYEE>
<EMPLOYEE>John</EMPLOYEE>
<EMPLOYEE>Tim</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>

<CHILD name="bbb">
<EMPLOYEE>Tom</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>

</ELEMENT>


<ELEMENT id="2" >

<CHILD name="aaa">
<EMPLOYEE>leo</EMPLOYEE>
<EMPLOYEE>Jason</EMPLOYEE>
</CHILD>


</ELEMENT>



How should my xslt code be? Do I need to iterate with a for each loop, or should I apply recursive templates?

Many tnx

The answer to grouping problems depends strongly on whether you are using XSLT 1.0 or 2.0.

For XSLT 1.0, use Muenchian grouping. Any good XSLT book will cover it. It's conceptually tricky when you first encounter it, but once you've learnt the coding pattern, it's fairly straightforward.

For XSLT 2.0, use the xsl:for-each-group instruction.

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