RE: Selecting First Letter

Wendell, 

The second match criteria you gave was able to pick off the first
bit of text successfully.  However (and this has been the crux of
my issue) if I include a template that tries to copy-of the 
contents of the <content> node, the text selection template 
never gets matched.

Thanks,

Jeff



test.xsl:

<xsl:stylesheet version = '1.0'
xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>
  <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

  <!-- gets matched only when second template is commented out -->
  <xsl:template match="text()[starts-with(ancestor::p,.)]">
    <xsl:variable name="initial" select="substring(.,1,1)"/>
    <b><xsl:value-of select="$initial"/></b>
    <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(.,$initial)"/>
  </xsl:template>
 
  <xsl:template match="content">
    <xsl:copy-of select="node()"/>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>


test.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="test.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<content>
  <p><a>Some</a> Text</p>
</content>



.. -----Original Message-----
.. From: Wendell Piez [mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
.. Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:36 PM
.. To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.. Subject: Re:  Selecting First Letter
.. 
.. 
.. Jeffrey,
.. 
.. I should add -- the harder part is matching the correct text node.
.. 
.. In your case, assuming you want the character in bold to be 
.. the initial 
.. character inside the p, at any level,
.. 
.. <xsl:template match="text()[not(preceding::text()
..    [count(.|current()/ancestor::p//text()) =
..     count(current()/ancestor::p//text())])]">
.. 
.. would do it, but you can see how horrible that is!
.. 
.. Not foolproof, but
.. 
.. match="text()[starts-with(ancestor::p,.)]"
.. 
.. would usually work (and would most probably perform better).
.. 
.. So today's XSLT Challenge is to write a better match for 
.. this problem.
.. 
.. Cheers,
.. Wendell
.. 
.. At 01:54 PM 9/30/2003, I wrote:
.. >XSLT 1.0 is not really a great string-processing language, 
.. which is what 
.. >you need here, but its string handling is good enough to 
.. manage this ... 
.. >you need the functions
.. >
.. >substring($string, $start, $length)
.. >
.. >and maybe substring-after($string, $substring)
.. >
.. >So:
.. >
.. ><xsl:template match="text()">
.. >   <xsl:variable name="initial" select="substring(.,1,1)">
.. >   <b><xsl:value-of select="$initial"/></b>
.. >   <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(.,$initial)"/>
.. ></xsl:template>
.. >
.. >should do it. (The rest would be an identity transform.)
.. >
.. >Cheers,
.. >Wendell
.. >
.. >At 01:33 PM 9/30/2003, you wrote:
.. >>I would like to be able to select the
.. >>first letter of the first text node
.. >>within a hierarchy, e.g., the "S" here:
.. >>
.. >>   <content>
.. >>     <p><a href="...">Some</a> Text</p>
.. >>   </content>
.. >>
.. >>and create a new element with that letter
.. >>while keeping the rest of the structure
.. >>as is, e.g:
.. >>
.. >>   <content>
.. >>     <p><a href="..."><b>S</b>ome</a> Text</p>
.. >>   </content>
.. >
.. >
.. >============================================================
.. ==========
.. >Wendell Piez                            
.. mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.. >Mulberry Technologies, Inc.  
..               http://www.mulberrytech.com
.. >17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 
.. 301/315-9635
.. >Suite 207                                          Phone: 
.. 301/315-9631
.. >Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 
.. 301/315-8285
.. >------------------------------------------------------------
.. ----------
.. >   Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
.. >============================================================
.. ==========
.. 
.. 
..  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
.. 
.. 

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