Re: setting up tables differently based on existance o

   <xsl:when test="value and not($col)">
       <fo:table-row>
           <fo:table-cell><xsl:value-of select="title"/></fo:table-cell>
           <fo:table-cell>text</fo:table-cell>
           <xsl:variable name="col" select="'true'"/>
   </xsl:when>
   <xsl:when test="value and $col">
           <fo:table-cell><xsl:value-of select="title"/></fo:table-cell>
           <fo:table-cell>text</fo:table-cell>
        </fo:table-row>
        <xsl:variable name="col" select="''"/>
   </xsl:when>

This obviously will not work, because XSLT does not allow variables to
be reassigned.

and the w3c specs for XSLT and XPath, I decided I could achive my goal
with recursive template matches.  Here is what I arrived at:

/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
<xsl:stylesheet . . .>
   <xsl:template match="document">
. . .
        <fo:table-body>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="field[1]">
        </fo:table-body>
. . .
   </xsl:template> <!-- end template match="document" -->
   <xsl:template match="field">
       <xsl:choose>
           <!-- When current <field> has <value/> and next <field>
has <value/> -->
           <xsl:when test="value and following-sibling::field[1]/value">
               <fo:table-row>
                   <fo:table-cell>
                       <!-- current title -->
                       <fo:block><xsl:value-of select="title"/></fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
                   <fo:table-cell>
                       <fo:block>text</fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
                   <fo:table-cell>
                       <!-- next title -->
                       <fo:block><xsl:value-of
select="following-sibling::field[1]/title"/></fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
                   <fo:table-cell>
                       <fo:block>text</fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
               </fo:table-row>
               <!-- use this template for the next element (after the
one previously referred
                     to as 'next'. omitting the final '[1]' will
cause this template to be processed
                     remaining <field>, which results in very long
files with lots of stuff i don't
                     want. -->
               <xsl:apply-templates
select="following-sibling::field[position() &gt; 1][1]"/>

           </xsl:when>
           <!-- if not. . . -->
           <xsl:otherwise>
               <fo:table-row>
                   <fo:table-cell>
                       <fo:block><xsl:value-of select="title"/></fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
                   <fo:table-cell number-columns-spanned="3">
                       <fo:block>other text</fo:block>
                   </fo:table-cell>
               </fo:table-row>
               <!-- use this template for the next element. again,
don't omit '[1]'. -->
               <xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::field[1]"/>
           </xsl:otherwise>
       </xsl:choose>
   </xsl:template>
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

This works great.  Based on my understanding of the XSLT parsers, this
is pretty memory intensive, as applying "following-sibling::field[1]"
actually passes the remaining <field> nodes in <document> every time,
leaving a lot of stuff in the stack. Is that correct?

At any rate, any ideas on a better way to do this?  (Other than a SAX
parsing of the XML with a few variables and leaving an extra node in
select <field>s.)