Re: (xsl) processing siblings based on sorted order, n

Hi Steve,

There is a way to avoid copying the sorted nodes into an RTF and then having to use
the whatever:node-set() function.

The template implementation of the generic sort() function (see
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/xsl-list/2001-05/msg01189.html), returns the resulting
node-list as a string of positions (numbers of fixed length).

You can use this to iterate through the sorted order in any direction.

You'll simply replace:

following-sibling::bar[position() < 3]

with 

$nodes[position()=$sortResult[position()=$currentPosition + 1]

|

$nodes[position()=$sortResult[position()=$currentPosition + 2]


I'd be glad to help if you have any problems with this.

Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.


 

Stephen Cunliffe wrote:

Problem:
I have an xml node-set that resembles the following;

<foo>
   <bar id="Red"/>
   <bar id="Orange"/>
   <bar id="Blue"/>
   <bar id="Green"/>
   <bar id="Yellow"/>
   <bar id="Purple"/>
   <bar id="Magenta"/>
   <bar id="Indigo"/>
   <bar id="Cyan"/>
   <bar id="Teal"/>
   ...
</foo>

I need to do (2) things.

First, I need to sort by id. (not a problem)

<table>
   <xsl:apply-templates select="foo/bar">
      <xsl:sort select="@id" data-type="text" order="ascending"/>
   </xsl:apply-templates>
</table>


Second, place the (sorted) bar id's, in a table, 3 per row.

E.g.

<tr>
   <td>Blue</td><td>Cyan</td><td>Green</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Indigo</td><td>Magenta</td><td>Orange</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Purple</td><td>Red</td><td>Teal</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Yellow</td>
</tr>

So, the logic as I see it, would be to process through each "bar" (the
siblings), and find the first item in every row,...

<xsl:template match="bar">
   <xsl:if test="position() mod 3 = 1">
      <tr>
         <!-- apply a template here, where
select=".|following-sibling::bar[position() < 3]" -->
      </tr>
   </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

::::: The issue, is that "position()" and "following-sibling" are in the
xml document order [XPath] and thus the results are not sorted in the
output.
======================================
Q.) Is there a way in XSLT / XPath to apply-templates / do a for-each,
that will "select" based on sorted order vs. document order... or a way
to create a new (sorted) node-set, without limiting myself to a specific
Xalan / Saxon / XSLT Processor.

Q2). If I *have* to use a specific XSLT Processor, anyone have a
solution for Xalan?




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