RE: alternative for modes

Oki I think it's time for an example :) Imagine:

<streetrace>
	<car>
		<owner>...</owner>
		...
	</car>
	<car>
		<owner>...</owner>
		...
	</car>
	...
</streetrace>

Now imagine you want to print out all the cars of the streetrace: first all
in red, then in blue, sorted by the owner of the car(in my example of
course, everything is a bit more complicated, especially the sorting code).
The best I came up with, is the following:

<xsl:template match="streetrace>
	<!-- print cars in blue !-->
	<xsl:call-template name="giveCarsSorted">
		<xsl:with-param name="mode" select="'blue'"/>
	</xsl:call-template>
	<!-- in red !-->
	<xsl:call-template name="giveCarsSorted">
		<xsl:with-param name="mode" select="'red'"/>
	</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="giveCarsSorted">
	<xsl:param name="mode"/>

	<xsl:apply-templates> // this will go to each <car>-element
		<xsl:sort select="car/owner"/> // sort on <owner> in <car>
		<xsl:with-param name="mode" select="$mode"/> // propagate
$mode
	</xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="car">
	<xsl:param name="mode"/>

	<xsl:if test="$mode = 'blue'">
		<font color="blue"><xsl:value-of select="."/></font><br/>
	</xsl:if>
	<xsl:if test="$mode = 'red'">
		<font color="red"><xsl:value-of select="."/></font><br/>
	</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

I hope I didn't make any big mistakes, since I haven't tested it myself.

In my opinion the problem is: I need the same sorting more than once, so
it's a good idea to put it in a separate template (the sorting in my code is
a bit more complicated). However, all the situations where I need the
sorting, DO NOT depend on any specific value(s) of the <car>-element or one
or more of his children. So I THINK creating 'conditional templates' won't
help since there is no condition, which can be deduced from the
tree-structure, at all.

Thanks for your time,

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Wendell Piez
Sent: donderdag 12 februari 2004 20:27
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE:  alternative for modes

Peter,

I don't know what you mean by "calls the other template on a particular 
order" (maybe typo for "in a particular order"?), but it may still be 
possible to do as Jeni says, since you can bind the result of a template 
call to a variable and interrogate it, as in:

<xsl:variable name="general-result">
   <xsl:call-template name="general"/>
</xsl:variable>

...then depending on what general-result is, you can do one thing or 
another (as well as copying it to the output).

This is all wonderfully vague: maybe seeing a concrete example would help? 
It's surprising how often straight conditionals can be avoided in XSLT by 
the smart use of templates ... as in

<xsl:apply-templates select="child[$condition1]" mode="condition1"/>
<xsl:apply-templates select="child[$condition2]" mode="condition2"/>

... and such like. Which seems to be in line with what you're asking.

Cheers,
Wendell

At 09:35 AM 2/12/2004, you wrote:
>This is not possible I think, since the general template calls the other
>template on a particular order (based on the calculation in the general
>template), so I don't think it's possible in this situation.
>
>Thanks for the tip,
>
>Peter
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeni Tennison
>Sent: donderdag 12 februari 2004 12:41
>To: Peter Billen; xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re:  alternative for modes
>
>Hi Peter,
>
> > As I mentioned above, 'generalTemplate' can be called on several
> > places in the template, because everytime I need the same
> > calculations, ... on the 'root'-tag. But each time (in every other
> > place), I actually need different manipulations on the 'child'-tag.
>
>Just a thought, but depending on what the general template is doing,
>it might be that you can turn around the processing, so that instead
>of calling the general template with a parameter specifying the mode,
>you apply templates in the specific mode and those templates call the
>general template as appropriate to perform the necessary calculations.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Jeni


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Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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