The recursive algorithm I wish I could use is exactly as you stated.
Something like the following (not tested, might be typos)
<xsl:template match="records">
<xsl:apply-templates select="record[(_at_)type = 'normal']"/>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="record[(_at_)type = 'normal']">
<record>
<xsl:copy-of select="*" />
<xsl:if test="following-sibling::record[1][(_at_)type='continuation']">
<xsl:apply-templates select=following-sibling::record[1]"/>
</xsl:if>
</record>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="record[(_at_)type = 'continuation']">
<xsl:copy-of select="*" />
<xsl:if test="following-sibling::record[1][(_at_)type='continuation']">
<xsl:apply-templates select=following-sibling::record[1]"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
However, this gives me a stack overflow error in Xalan (which I'm
stuck with for now). Actually, it gives me a stack overflow in Saxon
too -- I probably need to use named templates or something to get the
tail recursion optimization to work.
Raman,
The recursive algorithm works very well for me with XalanJ2.4.1. It is also
much faster than the variant with generate-id().
I tested it with a record (type="normal"), which has 200 following siblings
record (type="continuation").
With this source xml the recursive transformationtakes 781 ms to run. The
transformation with generate-id() takes 18687 ms.
Here's the (corrected) recursive algorithm:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*" />
<xsl:template match="@* | node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="records">
<records>
<xsl:apply-templates select="record[(_at_)type = 'normal']"/>
</records>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="record[(_at_)type = 'normal']">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()" />
<xsl:apply-templates
select="following-sibling::record[1][(_at_)type='continuation']"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="record[(_at_)type = 'continuation']">
<xsl:copy-of select="." />
<xsl:apply-templates
select="following-sibling::record[1][(_at_)type='continuation']"/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Here's the transformation that uses generate-id():
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:template match="@* | node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="records">
<records>
<xsl:apply-templates select="record[(_at_)type = 'normal']" />
</records>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="record">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()" />
<xsl:if test="following-sibling::record[1][(_at_)type = 'continuation']">
<xsl:apply-templates
select="following-sibling::record[(_at_)type = 'continuation' and
generate-id(preceding-sibling::record[(_at_)type = 'normal'][1]) =
generate-id(current())]"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
You should not have any problems with the recursive transformation. My
configuration is: Pentium 4, 1.7GHz, 256MB RAM, W2K.
=====
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.
http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list