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RE: Variables in XSL!

• To: "xml-dev" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Variables in XSL!
• From: "Stuart Celarier" <stuart@f...>
• Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:47:34 -0800
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <F5vLVKi3s1wsXZZTHfy00018399@h...>

No, it is not possible to assign to a variable in XSL / XSLT. XSL is
intentionally designed to be free from side-effects, meaning a sections
could be evaluated in any order. Obviously, assignment to a variable would
break this. For an explanation of why this is a good thing, see Michael
Kay's XSLT 2nd Edition, p. 37-38.

So, obviously XSL is a very different kind of language. When you think
VBScript, you are thinking about _procedural_ programming languages. XSL is
a _declarative_ language. This doesn't mean you can't achieve the behavior
you want, it just means that you have to think about it in a different way.

When you write i=i+1 you are iterating over a set of values, which you can't
do in XSL. But you can use recursion which is provided by the
<xsl:apply-templates> and <xsl:for-each> tags. Again see Michael Kay's book,
the section on Computational Stylesheets, p. 608-627, esp. p. 620 which
virtually restates your problem.

Cheers,
Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Thornqvist [mailto:thornqvist_peter@h...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 20:03
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject:  Variables in XSL!

Hi!

Is it possible to have variables/counters
in XSL, like in vbscript: i=i+1 etc?.
I would like to keep track of when the 10th value comes and then
do a line break...

/Peter

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• References:
  • Variables in XSL!
    • From: "Peter Thornqvist" <thornqvist_peter@h...>

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