RE: Display link text as a hyperlink

You seem to be using XSLT 2.0 so this is definitely a case for regular
expressions.

I'm always a bit hesitant about pattern matching in the text - you have to
accept that there will be a proportion of wrong matches and that these will
irritate your users. (Microsoft Powerpoint seems to have a nasty habit of
highlighting XPath expressions and regular expressions as URL hyperlinks,
for example). So I think it's important (a) to be careful about it, and (b)
to be conservative.

A reasonable regex might be something like 

\s(http://|www)(\.[a-z0-9])+\.(com|org|net|ca|uk|fr|de|...)[^\s]*

but I'm sure one could improve it.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brent Solly [mailto:ultra@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: 06 August 2008 15:46
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Display link text as a hyperlink
> 
> I have an xml file that contains this character sequence: 
> 'www.gamefaqs.com' .
> 
> Primary Problem:
> After I convert the 'www' text to hyperlink format, the xsl 
> displays it as plain text, but I would like to display it has 
> a hyperlink.   
> 
> Secondary:
> I am aware that the url may also contain subfolders like: 
> www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64   OR different a suffix like 
> www.gamefaqs.ca., but right now I'll focus on .com, but feel 
> free to make suggestions :) . 
> 
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <rss>
>    <channel>  
>       <item>     
>          <description>More information on this game can be 
> found at (www.gamefaqs.com)</description>
>       </item>
>    </channel>
> </rss>
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> 
> <xsl:stylesheet
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
> version="2.0">
> <xsl:strip-space elements="*" />
> <xsl:output method="html" encoding="UTF-8"/>
> 
> 
> <xsl:template name="globalReplace">
>   <xsl:param name="outputString"/>
>   <xsl:param name="target"/>
>   <xsl:param name="replacement"/>
>     <xsl:choose>
>    <!--Begin Test -->
>    <xsl:when test="contains($outputString,$target)">
>    
>       <xsl:value-of select=
>         "concat(substring-before($outputString,$target),
>                $replacement)"/>
>       <xsl:call-template name="globalReplace">
>         <xsl:with-param name="outputString" 
>              select="substring-after($outputString,$target)"/>
>         <xsl:with-param name="target" select="$target"/>
>         <xsl:with-param name="replacement" 
>              select="$replacement"/>
>       </xsl:call-template>
>     </xsl:when>
>    <!--End Test-->
>   
>     <xsl:otherwise>
>       <xsl:value-of select="$outputString"/>
>     </xsl:otherwise>
> 
>   </xsl:choose>
> </xsl:template>
> <xsl:template match="rss">
>   <xsl:call-template name="globalReplace">
>   <xsl:with-param name="outputString" select="."/>
>   <xsl:with-param name="target" select="'www'"/>
>   <xsl:with-param name="replacement" select="concat('&lt;a 
> href=&#34;http://www',substring-before(substring-after(.,'www'
> ),substring-after(.,'com')),'&#34;&gt;',substring-before(subst
> ring-after(.,'www.'),'.com'),'&lt;/a&gt;')"/>
>   
>   </xsl:call-template>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> 
> </xsl:stylesheet>