RE: A more concise way to handle empty numeric element

Google for "XSLT 1.0 sum of computed value"

(You're wanting to compute the numbers being summed by replacing "" by 0).

Not easy in XSLT 1.0, but there are a number of solutions. Much easier in
2.0.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Anderson [mailto:mark.anderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 07 June 2007 14:01
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  A more concise way to handle empty numeric elements
>
> Hi All
>
> I have to process an XML file that contains a lot of numeric
> data. Many of the elements that have no value are empty
> instead of being zero and it may differ for each line, for example
>
> <line id=1>
>             <cost1>1000</cost1>
>             <cost2>0</cost2> <!-- 0 here, but empty in next line -->
>             <cost3></cost3>
> </line>
> <line id=2>
>             <cost1>2000</cost1>
>             <cost2></cost2>
>             <cost3>3000</cost3>
> </line>
>
> I want to do:
>
> <xsl:for-each select="line">
>        <xsl:value-of select="format-number(cost1 + cost2 +
> cost3,'#,###')"/>
>       </xsl:for-each>
>
> However, the empty elements will cause "NaN" to be displayed
>
> To fix it I can do:
>
> <xsl:for-each select="line">
> <xsl:variable name="cost1">
>       <xsl:choose>
>             <xsl:when test="(cost1 &gt;= 0)"><xsl:value-of
> select="cost1"/></xsl:when>
>             <xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
>       </xsl:choose>
> </xsl:variable>
> <xsl:variable name="cost2">
>       <xsl:choose>
>             <xsl:when test="(cost2 &gt;= 0)"><xsl:value-of
> select="cost2"/></xsl:when>
>             <xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
>       </xsl:choose>
> </xsl:variable>
> <xsl:variable name="cost3">
>       <xsl:choose>
>             <xsl:when test="(cost3 &gt;= 0)"><xsl:value-of
> select="cost3"/></xsl:when>
>             <xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
>       </xsl:choose>
> </xsl:variable>
>        <xsl:value-of select="format-number($cost1 + $cost2 +
> $cost3,'#,###')"/>
>       </xsl:for-each>
>
> However, it seems very long winded. Also the output is HTML,
> so it makes it hard to read the HTML with so much XML interwoven.
>
> I realized I could write a template to return 0 for each
> empty element, but the call-template and parameter
> declaration will add further lines.
>
> Is there a more succinct/elegant way to do it? (it's a shame
> "number(cost1)" doesn't return 0 for empty elements)
>
> BTW: I'm using XSLT1.0 and can't use any extensions
>
> Thanks in advance
> M a r k