Re: Request hints for creating TOC in HTML table

I'll think something like this must have been done a thousand times before,

I have a xml document e.g.
...
What I would like is to transform this document into a HTML table like with
four columns

-----------------------------
| #    | E    | J    | Q    |
|365 BC|      |      | R    |
| A    | F    | K    | S    |
|alpha |      | L    | T    |
| B    | G    | M    | U    |
|bedroc| H    | N    | V    |
| C    | I    | O    | X    |
| D    |      | P    | Z    |
-----------------------------

Right know I can't either figure out how to sort the items in groups,

or find out how many groups to put into each column to make it look nice.

T:\ftemp>type thomas.xml
<content>
        <item>bedrock</item>
        <item>alphaville</item>
        <item>Zebra</item>
        <item>365 BC</item>
        <item>alpha2</item>
        <item>alphaz</item>
        ...
</content>

T:\ftemp>type thomas.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
<!ENTITY lower 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789'>
<!ENTITY upper 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ##########'>
<!ENTITY first 'translate(substring(.,1,1),"&lower;","&upper;")'>
]>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:i="internal"
                version="1.0">

<i:index>
  <l>#</l>  <l>A</l>  <l>B</l>  <l>C</l>  <l>D</l>  <l>E</l>
  <l>F</l>  <l>G</l>  <l>H</l>  <l>I</l>  <l>J</l>  <l>K</l>  <l>L</l>
  <l>M</l>  <l>N</l>  <l>O</l>  <l>P</l>  <l>Q</l>  <l>R</l>  <l>S</l>
  <l>T</l>  <l>U</l>  <l>V</l>  <l>W</l>  <l>X</l>  <l>Y</l>  <l>Z</l>
</i:index>

<xsl:template match="/">
  <xsl:variable name="input" select="/"/>
  <xsl:for-each select="document('')/*/i:index/l">
    <xsl:value-of select="."/><xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
    <xsl:variable name="index" select="."/>
    <xsl:for-each select="$input">
      <xsl:for-each select="key('firsts',$index)">
        <xsl:sort/>
        <xsl:value-of select="."/><xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
      </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>
T:\ftemp>saxon thomas.xml thomas.xsl
#
365 BC
A
alpha2
alphaville
alphaz
B
bedrock
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Zebra

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