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[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Re:Excluding a complete branch while identity copy
 At 01:17 PM 10/11/2008, you wrote: I think the problem here (for me) was forgetting that (in this 'recursive descent' style) the sytlesheet is defining the output rather than controlling the way that input is processed (i.e. I was thinking procedurally). So we get to the questions to clarify the behaviour :- Cool. (To Ken's and David's helpful answers, I'm going to add some stuff.) 1. I had put apply-templates into the 'exclude this node' templates because I was mistakenly thinking that unless I did that the processing of the input would stop. Pretty much. To take a different tack -- this seems like a detour, but bear with me -- understand that <xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each select="/path/to/element">
<do><stuff/></do>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>is identical, from the point of view of processing (although not from the point of extensibility and flexibility), to: <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:apply-templates select="/path/to/element"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="element"> <do><stuff/></do> </xsl:template> and further understand that <xsl:apply-templates/> could also be written as <xsl:apply-templates select="child::node()"/> Then, as you say, if you don't match a node with a template of your own, it will match the built-in template. For elements, this looks like <xsl:template match="*"> <xsl:apply-templates/> </xsl:template> and for text nodes, this looks like <xsl:template match="text()"> <xsl:value-of select="."/> </xsl:template> ... the distinction here is crucial. The built-in handling for text nodes (which of course you are free to overwrite however you like) doesn't apply templates; instead it writes the text node's value. Applying templates to the children of a text node is as good as suppressing it, since text nodes have no children and applying templates to an empty node set gets you nothing. Make sense? (Put these bits of information into your brain, mix with the ideas you already have in there, let rise for several hours, and bake.) 2. The 'near' identity template that I used does appear to produce the same results as the one you provided. I suspect that the one provided by Ryan does also (thanks Ryan) :- Yours will copy the input, but it isn't going to work for this application, mostly, since it doesn't actually traverse the tree. It might work with some particular input data, but only if the template you wrote never matches any ancestor of the elements you want to remove. If it does, that ancestor will be copied entirely instead of its children (and their children, etc.) being processed to match templates of their own. Hence, no template will ever match the nodes you want to remove, which is how they are removed. Ryan's version and mine work pretty much the same way. His doesn't apply templates to all children at once; instead it applies templates to all attributes and to all element children. If you use his, you may note (if you try it) that any comments and processing-instructions will not be copied, since they are not matched by the copying template, and the built-in template that matches them does not copy them. My version of the template matches (and copies, and applies templates to) anything in the input tree including comments and PIs. Ryan's version is also perhaps a little clearer to programmers who don't know what "node()" means, but who can guess what "*" means. I hope that helps -- Wendell ====================================================================== 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 ====================================================================== 
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