Re: Assigning unique id to new node using generate-id(

Thanks for all of your feedback.  I've got a solution that will meet my requirements.

I've added a nextCredentialID attribute to the users profile.  This will serve as
a counter, that I will update each time I add a new credential (but won't change
when I edit or delete a credential).

Then for the credentialID of the new node, I prefix with a 'c' so it's a valid
xml ID attribute.

Below is the sylesheet I'm using to add a new credential.

    <xsl:template match="/profile">
        <profile>
            <xsl:attribute name="nextCredentialID">
                <xsl:value-of select="number(@nextCredentialID) + number('1')"/>
            </xsl:attribute>
            <xsl:for-each select="credential">
                <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
            </xsl:for-each>
            <credential>
                <xsl:attribute name="id">
                    <xsl:value-of select="concat('c', @nextCredentialID)"/>
                </xsl:attribute>
                <username><xsl:value-of select="$username"/></username>
                <password><xsl:value-of select="$password"/></password>
                <description><xsl:value-of select="$description"/></description>
                <lastModified><xsl:value-of
select="java:getCurrentDateTimeGMT($dateHelper)"/></lastModified>
            </credential>
    </xsl:template>

Thanks again for your help.
Kyle

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 17:57 , David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx> sent:

>
>> It appears as if the generate-id
>> call doesn't observe existing id's in the current/copied credential nodes. 
>
>that is so, the only thing generate-id() is defined to do is 
>return a unique string that matches the Name production (so is usable as
>an id) when applied to any node in the source. 
>
>> My current workaround is to transform twice.  The first transformation appends
>> the new credential node.  The second transformation assigns an id (using
>> generate-id()) to any credential nodes without an id (probably only newly
>> created).  Seems like I should be able to do it all in one transform.
>
>That doesn't sound a safe workaround. You have no assurance that the ids
>generated on the second pass won't be teh same as an existing id in your
>source.
>
>If you don't need the ids to be stable you could of course regenerate
>the document wioth new ids in each case, generated by generate-id() they
>would all then be distinct but also typically didffernt from teh id in
>teh source.
>
>Otherwise you need a different way to generate unique id. Two obvious contenders.
>As your are always adding to teh doc you coul duse
>
>
>
>...
>
>so the id will be id followed by teh number of elements you had before,
>this will go up by one each time,
>
>or you could use
>
>':- ','')}">
>
>an use an id based on the current time.
>
>David
>
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