RE: Generating numeric character references

Use a text editor, or perhaps a SAX filter, to replace "&#" by "&".
Why use a power drill when you can do the job with a hammer?

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Stuart Celarier
> Sent: 14 January 2003 20:06
> To: 'XSL-List'
> Subject:  Generating numeric character references
> 
> 
> I'd like to transform specific text subtrings into numeric 
> character references during in an XSLT transformation. For 
> example, I want to transform all occurrences that look like 
> "­" within a string into "&#173".
> 
> Here's the back story. I have source XML that is generated 
> automatically from HTML by a third-party. The third-party 
> incorrectly handles entity references, so that "­" in 
> the original HTML in becomes "­" in the XML. I want 
> to restore the damage done. To simplify things, I am only 
> interested in documents with ISO 8859-1 encoding.
> 
> Below is a solution [1] that I am not pleased with. It is a 
> named template that recursively parses a string, trying to 
> replace references. This requires an <xsl:when> element for 
> each value of numeric character reference that might be 
> encountered (see the "additional cases here" comment). 
> Problems with this include linear search of values, omitted 
> values, and opportunity for error in mismatched values.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a better approach to generating numeric 
> character references? I am would be fine restricting the 
> solution to MSXML or .NET's System.Xml.Xsl XSLT processors, 
> if that is an issue.
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> Cheers,
> Stuart
> 
> 
> 
> [1] A less than happy solution:
> 
>   <xsl:template name="restoreNumCharRefs">
>     <xsl:param name="string"/>
> 
>     <xsl:choose>
>       <xsl:when test="contains($string, '&amp;')">
>         <xsl:variable name="head" 
> select="substring-before($string, '&amp;')"/>
>         <xsl:variable name="remainder" 
> select="substring-after($string, '&amp;')"/>
>         <xsl:variable name="reference" 
> select="substring-before($remainder, ';')"/>
> 
>         <xsl:variable name="entity">
>           <xsl:choose>
>             <xsl:when test="$reference='#167'">&#167;</xsl:when>
>             <xsl:when test="$reference='#173'">&#173;</xsl:when>
> 
>             <!-- additional cases here -->
> 
>             <xsl:otherwise>&amp;<xsl:value-of 
> select="$reference"/>;</xsl:otherwise>
>           </xsl:choose>
>         </xsl:variable>
> 
>         <xsl:variable name="tail">
>           <xsl:call-template name=" restoreNumCharRefs">
>             <xsl:with-param name="string" 
> select="substring-after($remainder, ';')"/>
>           </xsl:call-template>
>         </xsl:variable>
> 
>         <xsl:value-of select="concat($head, $entity, $tail)"/>
>       </xsl:when>
>       <xsl:otherwise>
>         <xsl:value-of select="$string"/>
>       </xsl:otherwise>
>     </xsl:choose>
> 
>   </xsl:template> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 


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