Re: White space control when formatting for ascii text

Quick guess as you have covered the usual problem with spaces in the template
by surrounding your live text with <xsl:text elements is that some problems
may be generated by the white space in your source data.

Use something like this to strip the text output:

<xsl:template match="text()">
	<xsl:value-of select="normalize-space(.)"/>
</xsl:template>

that should get rid of any extra spaces, CR's and tabs that would come
from the formatting in the source data.

..dan


> 
> I'm attempting to transform some xml into nicely formatted ascii style
> text instead of to html.  I've been using tabs to align my columns but
> sometimes I get extra tabs. I don't know why.
> 
> It seems to be very difficult to control the white space in the style
> sheet.  Is there a way to make the white space more visibile for better
> debugging? 
> 
> I switched to using the unicode characters for return and tab.  
> return = &#xA; and tab = &#9; so that I could know what tabs and line
> breaks I was putting in.
> 
> Maybe I've missed something.
> 
> Style sheet output:
> -------------------
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
> This is a listing of fields by category
> 
> Category:  People
> 
> PersonID        Global unique identifier for a person.
>       SSN       Social Security Number
>       Firstname First Name
>       Lastname  Last Name
>       Middlename        Middle Name
>       DOB       Date of birth
>       Gender    Gender of the person.
> ^
> |--------no reason for tab here.
> 
> Style sheet:
> ------------
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
>                 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
> <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
> 
> <xsl:template match="fieldlist">
> <xsl:text>This is a listing of fields by category&#xA;</xsl:text>
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> <xsl:template match="table">
> <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
> <xsl:text>Category:  </xsl:text>
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> <xsl:template match="name">
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> <xsl:text>&#xA;&#xA;</xsl:text>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> <xsl:template match="field">
> <xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
> <xsl:text>&#9;</xsl:text>
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> 
> <xsl:template match="desc">
> <xsl:apply-templates/>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> Original xml:
> -------------
> <?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
> <!DOCTYPE fieldlist SYSTEM "fieldlist.dtd">
> <fieldlist>
>   <table>
>     <name>People</name>
> 
>     <field name="PersonID" type="Number(10)" keytype="PRIMARY KEY">
>       <desc>Global unique identifier for a person.
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="SSN" type="varchar2(9)" keytype="NOT NULL">
>       <desc>Social Security Number
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="Firstname" type="varchar2(20)" keytype="">
>       <desc>First Name
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="Lastname" type="varchar2(20)" keytype="">
>       <desc>Last Name
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="Middlename" type="varchar2(20)" keytype="">
>       <desc>Middle Name
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="DOB" type="Date" keytype="">
>       <desc>Date of birth
>       </desc>
>     </field>
> 
>     <field name="Gender" type="char(1)" keytype="">
>       <desc>Gender of the person.
>       </desc>
>     </field>
>   </table>
> </fieldlist>
> 
> ______________________________________________________
> Rick Anderson	| rianders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ________________|_____________________________________
> Continuous Education & Outreach
> Manager of Computer Systems,  (732)932-5071
> ______________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 


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