Re: Unable to get text() of node

Thanks again
Liron

You might try this..

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="Untitled2.xslt"?>
<tree>
<child>First Child</child>
<child>
 <childname>SecondChild</childname>
     Second Child
  </child>
<child>
 <childname>ThirdChild</childname>
     Third Child
  </child>
</tree>

results in the following in memory tree of nodes (ignoring white space nodes)

/
|
tree
|
------------------------------------
| | |
child child child
| | |
text() ------- ---------
First Child | | | |
childname text() childname text()
| Second Child | Third Child
text() text()
SecondChild ThirdChild

and this xslt seems to get what you want...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<tree>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</tree>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="child">
    <!-- process child nodes named childname only-->
 <xsl:apply-templates select="childname"/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="childname">
<childtext>
<!--now that we know there is a childname - get the text node of the parent named child
<xsl:value-of select="parent::child/text()"/>
</childtext>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

which gives the following output...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tree>
<childtext>
     Second Child
  </childtext>
<childtext>
     Third Child
  </childtext>
</tree>

The XPath statement in the childname template starts at the current node in the tree (childname) - then goes along Parent axis to an element named child (parent::child), then goes down to a child text node (/text()). I find I have to keep this in memory tree of nodes clearly in my mind to work out appropriate Xpaths.

Incidentally - when I tried your original xslt (Xpath was <xsl:value-of select="../text()"/> in XML Spy - which is a short hand way of writing the XPath - it gives me the correct answer as well (not empty elements). What processor are you using?

This assumes there is only one childname per child though. If there can be more than one childtext elements per child,
then the select statement in the childtext tempalte will return a node set, and all nodes except the first will be ignored. You will get repeated childtext nodes in that case.

Note: text()[2] will only work if the text you want is the second node and will fail if the text appears before the childname element.

Also note that even if childname is "empty" - as long as the childname node exists - you will get the text node of child output. I suppose if you wanted otherwise you would have to test to see if the childname node has a text node as a child.



Hope this is helpful...

Cheers....Hugh
CyberSpace Industries 2000 Inc.
XML Training and Consulting