thanks! now help on alternating rows needed.

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Subject: thanks! now help on alternating rows needed.
From: "Bill Carter" <bcarter2003@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 14:54:03 -0500

thank you thank you. I now have a better understanding of the != operator and preceding.

now we get to my real problem. I am trying to alternate row colors on a table.

here is my xml:

<stocks>
  <ticker>AAA</ticker>
  <ticker>ABT</ticker>
  <ticker>BIG</ticker>
  <ticker>CBS</ticker>
  <ticker>CBS</ticker>
  <ticker>IBM</ticker>
  <ticker>XYZ</ticker>
</stocks>

this style sheet works at producing the desired results of producing a table each ticker displayed in each row.

<table> <xsl:for-each select="stocks/ticker"> <tr> <xsl:attribute name="bgcolor"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 1">white</xsl:when> <xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 0">yellow</xsl:when> </xsl:choose> </xsl:attribute> <td><xsl:value-of select="." />: Pos:<xsl:value-of select="position()" /></td> </tr> </xsl:for-each> </table>

gives me:
AAA: Pos:1
ABT: Pos:2 YELLOW BACKGROUND
BIG: Pos:3
CBS: Pos:4 YELLOW BACKGROUND
CBS: Pos:5
IBM: Pos:6 YELLOW BACKGROUND
XYZ: Pos:7

but, I don't want to display the cbs ticker twice, because it is a repeat. So I add the appropriate if.

<table> <xsl:for-each select="stocks/ticker"> <xsl:if test="not(. = preceding-sibling::ticker)"> <tr> <xsl:attribute name="bgcolor"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 1">white</xsl:when> <xsl:when test="position() mod 2 = 0">yellow</xsl:when> </xsl:choose> </xsl:attribute> <td><xsl:value-of select="." />: Pos:<xsl:value-of select="position()" /></td> </tr> </xsl:if> </xsl:for-each> </table>

this gives me:

AAA: Pos:1
ABT: Pos:2 YELLOW BACKGROUND
BIG: Pos:3
CBS: Pos:4 YELLOW BACKGROUND
IBM: Pos:6 YELLOW BACKGROUND
XYZ: Pos:7

I have gotten rid of the duplicate, but now my alternating row colors are wrong. looks like the position() cant be used here.

okay, so I have been reading around this similar problem and see that there might be an answer with a recursive template and a parameter, but I haven't gotten too far down that road. Is this the solution? I really need a counter (parameter?) that increments each time the table row is displayed and the row color is based on that. Is there a straighforward way of doing this?

I appreciate all your help. You guys are great.

will

From: Mike Brown <mike@xxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  preceding...please help understanding...
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 12:13:10 -0600 (MDT)

Bill Carter wrote:
> I am having trouble understanding preceding.

What you don't realize about preceding is not affecting your results.
The preceding axis picks up more nodes than preceding-sibling. You
probably want preceding-sibling. Otherwise, if you have something like

<foo>
  <stocks>
    <ticker>ZZZ</ticker>
    <ticker>AAA</sticker>
  </stocks>
  <stocks>
    <ticker>AAA</sticker>
    <ticker>BBB</sticker>
  </stocks>
</foo>

and you start at the BBB ticker, preceding::ticker picks up the first
ZZZ and AAA as well as the immediately preceding AAA.
preceding-sibling::ticker will get you just the ones you want.

What you're confused about, though, and this is what is skewing your results, is equality comparisons on node-sets.

$set1 = $set2 is true if any node in $set1 has a string-value equal to the
string-value of any node in $set2.

$set1 != $set2 is true if any node in $set1 has a string-value not equal to
the string-value of any node in $set2. != is very rarely what you want. Use
not() and = instead, like this:

not($set1 = $set2)

...which will be true if no node in $set1 has a string-value equal to the
string-value of any node in $set2.

Similar rules apply if instead of $set1 you have any other object type; if the operand on the right is a node-set, then the string-value of the left operand is compared to the string-value of every node in the node-set.


   - Mike
____________________________________________________________________________
  mike j. brown                   |  xml/xslt: http://skew.org/xml/
  denver/boulder, colorado, usa   |  resume: http://skew.org/~mike/resume/

XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl


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Current Thread
thanks! now help on alternating rows needed. Bill Carter - Sat, 7 Sep 2002 15:52:55 -0400 (EDT) <= J.Pietschmann - Sat, 7 Sep 2002 15:58:51 -0400 (EDT) <Possible follow-ups> Bill Carter - Sat, 7 Sep 2002 16:44:48 -0400 (EDT)

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Re: preceding...please help u, Mike Brown	Thread	Re: thanks! now help on alter, J.Pietschmann
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