Re: xsl:variable doesn't work here

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Subject: Re: xsl:variable doesn't work here
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 15:29:56 -0500

Robert,

At 03:02 PM 3/1/2002, you wrote:

Instead of

    <xsl:if test=".//article[.//author='C. J. Date']">
    ..
     <xsl:copy-of select=".//article[.//author='C. J. Date']"/>

i want to store the condition in a variable condition and write

    <xsl:variable name="condition">.//article[.//author='C. J.
Date']</xsl:variable>


    <xsl:if test="$condition">
    ..
     <xsl:copy-of select="$condition"/>

What's happening is that you're storing a string ".//article[.//author='C. J. Date']" in your variable, not the node. (Actually it's a result tree fragment with one text node child, but this amounts to the same thing as a string when you test on it.) Given that the variable is assigned and the string is not empty, when evaluated as a Boolean (as it is in an if test), it always tests as true.

You can assign the node itself (themselves: as far as the processor knows there could be more than one) to the variable by declaring it like so:

<xsl:variable name="condition" select=".//article[.//author='C. J. Date']"/>

and that should work for you.

But why test for the existence of these nodes at all? If you merely say

<xsl:copy-of select=".//article[.//author='C. J. Date']"/>

the nodes will be copied if they exist, but if they don't ... they won't.

If you have to do more than just copy the nodes or apply templates to them based on your condition (namely whether any exist), then assigning them to a variable to test, and then do your stuff, makes sense.

Cheers,
Wendell

But this does not work. I also tried {$condition} instead of $condition.

Whats wrong?
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Current Thread
xsl:variable doesn't work here Robert Sösemann - Fri, 1 Mar 2002 15:01:20 -0500 (EST) Wendell Piez - Fri, 1 Mar 2002 15:27:08 -0500 (EST) <= Michael Kay - Sat, 2 Mar 2002 09:16:40 -0500 (EST)

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