Re: Fixed width text output

Padding To A Fixed Field Size 

Assuming an input XML document "somedoc.xml" that looks like this: 

<somedoc someattribute="xyz">
   <name>ABCD</name>
</somdoc>

We want to create a fixed position ASCII output that looks like this: 

      ABCD     xyz

In other words, we want to left-pad the two fields with whitespace
characters, and ensure that they are individually padded to a specified
fixed length. 

To do this, you can call a recursive template, or use a variable
containing a lot of spaces using substring. Here is an example of the
recursive template:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet 
   xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
   version="1.0"
>
<xsl:preserve-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:output method="text"/>

<xsl:template match="/somedoc">

<xsl:call-template name="rightpad"><xsl:with-param name="fieldvalue"
select="string(./name)"/><xsl:with-param name="fieldsize"
select="number(10)"/></xsl:call-template><xsl:text> </xsl:text>
<xsl:call-template name="rightpad"><xsl:with-param name="fieldvalue"
select="string(@someattribute)"/><xsl:with-param name="fieldsize"
select="number(8)"/></xsl:call-template><xsl:text> </xsl:text>

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="rightpad"> 
<xsl:param name="fieldvalue" select="string('')"/>
<xsl:param name="fieldsize" select="0"/>
<xsl:variable name="whatsthediff" select="$fieldsize -
string-length($fieldvalue)" />
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$whatsthediff < 0" >
<xsl:value-of select="$fieldvalue"/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="$fieldvalue"/>
<xsl:call-template name="space"><xsl:with-param name="repeat"
select="$whatsthediff"/></xsl:call-template>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="leftpad"> 
<xsl:param name="fieldvalue" select="string('')"/>
<xsl:param name="fieldsize" select="0"/>
<xsl:variable name="whatsthediff" select="$fieldsize -
string-length($fieldvalue)" />
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$whatsthediff < 0" >
<xsl:value-of select="$fieldvalue"/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:call-template name="space"><xsl:with-param name="repeat"
select="$whatsthediff"/></xsl:call-template>
<xsl:value-of select="$fieldvalue"/>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="space">
<xsl:param name="repeat">0</xsl:param>
<xsl:param name="fillchar" select="' '/>
<xsl:if test="number($repeat) >= 1">
<xsl:call-template name="space">
<xsl:with-param name="repeat" select="$repeat - 1"/>
<xsl:with-param name="fillchar" select="$fillchar"/>
</xsl:call-template>
<xsl:value-of select="$fillchar"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Steve Yates wrote:
> 
> I am need of a way to take an XML file and move that information into a
> fixed width, space delimited text file. How can I do this?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Steve
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list

--
Mitch.Amiano (@alcatel.com)
SW Development Engineer in C++/Java/Perl/TCL/SQL/XML/XSLT/XPath
Advance Design Process Group, Raleigh Engineering Services     Alcatel
USA

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list