XML-to-XML recursive template handling

Hi-

I am doing an XML-to-XML transform in which I need to rearrange elements in
such a way that sometimes the context element is left empty when I am finished
rearranging (but not always). As a second step, I want to strip these newly
empty elements from the final output, and I am having trouble doing so.

For those of you who are familiar with the NLM's tool to convert older DTDs to
the 3.0 DTD, I am modifying the base.xsl component of the 2publishing3
conversion. Essentially, everything is copied through except elements that
need to be modified in one way or another. Specifically, I am moving certain
footnotes out of <fn-group> and into other locations in the document. If the
only footnotes in the original <fn-group> are those that I move, then after
this action, the result is <fn-group/>, which I want to remove from the final
output.

I've tried several methods, and nothing I've tried is working. Any pointers
would be very much appreciated. I think that the issue is that I'm not fully
understanding how the recursion works here to re-process a node that I've
already processed once (or maybe it has to do with the default copy method for
the stylesheet?)...

(Default copy:
<xsl:template match="* | @* | text()" priority="-1">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*|*|text()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>)

XSL version=1.0
Processor=Oxygen's built-in saxon (Oxygen version 11.2 for Linux)

Here's the relevant section of the stylesheet:

<xsl:template match="fn-group">
  <xsl:param name="node"><xsl:apply-templates/></xsl:param>
  <xsl:if test="fn">
<fn-group>
    <xsl:for-each select="fn">
<xsl:choose>
                       <!-- retag no fn-type to fn-type="other" -->
<xsl:when test="not(@fn-type)">
<fn fn-type="other">
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</fn>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="@fn-type='other'">
<fn fn-type="other">
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</fn>
</xsl:when>
<!-- suppress here, moved to author-notes -->
<xsl:when test="fn-type='conflict'"/>
<!-- suppress here, retagged into funding-statement -->
<xsl:when test="fn-type='financial-disclosure'"/>
</xsl:choose>
    </xsl:for-each>
</fn-group>
<xsl:call-template name="emptyfn">
<xsl:with-param name="node" select="$node"/>
</xsl:call-template>
     </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="emptyfn">
<xsl:param name="node"/>
<xsl:if test="not($node)"/>
</xsl:template>


Thanks much-

Lynn



Lynn Murdock, MLIS
Web Producer
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.plos.org<http://www.plos.org/>




Lynn Murdock, MLIS
Web Producer
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.plos.org