At 04:58 PM 11/11/2002, you wrote:
I am trying to take a basic XML file and turn it into a table. This table
should be two columns wide and as many rows long as required.
Following the instructions at:
http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/N7450.html#d7256e205
With four hit's (my XML uses pet's) I get the following result:
Hit One Hit Two
Hit Two Hit Three
Hit Four is never seen.. and as you can see hit two duplicates. I am using
XMLSPY with the internal XSLT engine to work on this.
Is the FAQ in need of updating? Is XMLSPY not behaving properly? Did I copy
it wrong?
First off, I'm surprised that you're seeing anything. Below are two
typos that prevented me from transforming the files.
<TYPOS>
<xsl:template name="make_empty_cells">
<xsl:with-param name="num" select="0"/>
This should be <xsl:param .../>, not "with-param".
<xsl:if test="$num">
<td> </td>
<xsl:call-template name="make_empty_cells">
<xsl:with-param name="num - 1"/>
This should be <xsl:with-param name="num" select="$num - 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</TYPOS>
The problem is during the initial selection, as seen here
<xsl:template match="pets">
<xsl:variable name="cols" select="3"/>
<xsl:variable name="all_pets" select="pet"/>
<xsl:for-each select="$all_pets[position() mod $cols = 1]">
<xsl:variable name="this_pet_pos" select="position()"/>
<xsl:variable name="current_row_pets"
select="$all_pets[position() >= $this_pet_pos and $this_pet_pos + $cols >
position()]"/>
...
When you set $this_pet_pos equal to position(), it is the position of
the node within those nodes selected for the for-each, not those nodes
assigned to $all_pets. This means that the values (no matter what $cols is
equal to) will always be 1,2,3,...,count($all_pets)/$cols. What you want
it to be is 1, $cols + 1, 2 * $cols + 1, ..., n * $cols + 1. Analyzing
these two series, I can offer you a quick'n'dirty fix of assigning
$this_pet_pos the value of
(position() - 1) * $cols + 1
This will transform the first (undesired) series into the second (desired)
one. As for the FAQ, I haven't analyzed the other templates to see if they
compensate for this position() issue. But if they don't compensate, I
would say that they are incorrect in that regard.
A second place that your template fails you (and I don't know if you
copied this part or not) is the assignment of $num_empty_cols. You state
it should be equal to "$cols - $current_row_pets", but $current_row_pets is
a nodeset, not a number. Change it to the assignment below and you will be
fine.
<xsl:variable name="num_empty_cols" select="$cols - count($current_row_pets)"/>
Fix these four typos and you'll be done.
Greg Faron
Integre Technical Publishing Co.
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list