David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> Is there a cleaner / simpler way to do this?  Any chance you can do
>> this in one line?
>
> In xslt2:
>
> <xsl:variable name="bg_img" select="if(normalize-space($all_vars))
>  then 'background_bright' else 'background_faded'"/>

I hate the idea of 2 'if's in a language.

I disliked it too when I first saw it... It always looks a complete
mess to the untrained eye, possibly because traditional indentation is
not usually applied, possibly because double quotes get split over
multiple lines.

However once you've used a few if-then-else's and a couple
for-in-return's you quickly learn to love them and life without them
just seems so long winded, as pointed out by the OP with a
choose-when-otherwise in a variable.