A good guide to XML Schema is Priscilla Walmsley's book Definitive XML
Schema published by Prentice Hall. 

It's probably overkill to learn all about XML Schema just for this problem,
but I mentioned it because there are hundreds of errors that people make
with path expressions which would be diagnosed much more quickly if people
used schema-aware stylesheets and queries. Of course, you still need to
understand the XSLT/XPath rules to get things right.

I still think the right solution for this problem might be to generate the
stylesheet before running it. You said that wasn't possible, but you didn't
say why.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Glenister [mailto:NGlenister@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 01 August 2006 08:57
> To: 'xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: RE:  Is it possible to create xsl:sort from 
> input parameters using XSLT 2.0 (Saxon)?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> thanks for info, unfortunatly I don't know how to make a 
> schema... at the risk of being off topic does anyone have any 
> good references to get me started?
> 
> cheers
> 
> Nick
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 31 July 2006 17:53
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE:  Is it possible to create xsl:sort from 
> input parameters using XSLT 2.0 (Saxon)?
> 
> 
> > <xsl:param name="sortField"/>
> > 
> > And into this param i pass the XML:
> > 
> > <SortFields>
> > 	<SortField>
> > 		<Sort>lendername</Sort>
> > 		<Order>ascending</Order>
> > 		<DataType>text</DataType>
> > 		<CaseOrder>lowercasefirst</CaseOrder>
> > 	</SortField>
> > </SortFields>
> > 
> > 
> > rather than use 12 parameters (four for each <xsl:sort/>), 
> I had hoped 
> > that using this XML I would be able to read the values out like so:
> > 
> > 	<xsl:sort select="$sortField/SortField[1]/Sort"
> > order="{$sortField/SortField[1]/Order}"/>
> 
> You want $sortField/SortFields/SortField[1]/Order
> > 
> > 
> > As far as I can tell the order attribute should read 
> "acsending" out 
> > of the XML but I've no real way of finding out what it is reading.
> 
> Take a look at the trace() function, or simply do 
> <xsl:copy-of select="$sortField"/>.
> 
> Better still, write a little schema for this XML document and 
> make your stylesheet schema-aware, and then the error will be 
> reported to you at compile time.
> 
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> 
> 
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