Re: Extract values from first occurrence of a node

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Subject: Re: Extract values from first occurrence of a node
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:31:26 -0400

Matt,

Although this can be done without them, keys are very useful in XSLT for this kind of operation.

You'd declare a key to match elements, with the string value you care about (your substring) as the key value:

<xsl:key name="B-by-string" match="B" use="substring(.,1,5)"/>

Then the XPath "key('B-by-string','12344')" will get you all elements that have that key value, while "key('B-by-string','12344')[1]" will get you the first of these (in document order). You could of course use a variable as that second argument.

Part of getting your head around XSLT's non-proceduralness is in learning the various ways nodes can be selected, without having to run processes over the set (or find out what processes may have already been run -- in a side-effect free system this isn't appropriate, desirable or generally possible).

Cheers,
Wendell

At 12:09 PM 7/16/2003, you wrote:

I am trying to translate XML via XSL/XSLT need to specifically extract the values from the first occurrence of a particular node and ignore the rest of that same node.

I was attempting to use preceding-sibling::nodeset/node to verify if the match has already been made, but having little luck because I not only need to match the node but match substrings of the node's value.

Example XML:
<A>
12345 ABCD
12344 ABCD
12333 EFGH
12344 WXYZ
</A>
What I need to do:

Recognize the first with 12344 (substring from 1 with length 5) and extract ABCD (substring from 7 with length 4), but ignore all other 

This is a very basic example, the XML I am working with is a bit more complicated and it is being translated via XSL-FO for PDF generation.

The biggest problem I am having with XSL/XSLT is detaching from my procedural language experience! From my experience, I am having success in mapping singlular nodes but more difficulty when trying to accomplish "decision logic" in a non-procedural manner.

Any suggestions or recommended reads would be great.
Thanks,
Matt
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Current Thread

Extract values from first occurrence of a node
- Matthew Mateyak - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:10:11 -0400 (EDT)
 - Wendell Piez - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:35:11 -0400 (EDT) <=
 - David Carlisle - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:50:36 -0400 (EDT)
 - Rick Taylor - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 13:01:59 -0400 (EDT)
 - <Possible follow-ups>
 - Tengshe, Ashish - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:26:38 -0400 (EDT)
 - Matthew Mateyak - Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:58:09 -0400 (EDT)

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