Using XSL to Translate Repetitive-Node XML to Table with COLSPANs

Hello,

I have the following xml file:

        <column_header>
                <header rowid="0">
                        <data columnid="01" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="11" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="21" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="31" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="41" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="51" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="61" name="2003"/>
                        <data columnid="71" name="2003"/>
                </header>
                <header rowid="1">
                        <data columnid="01" name="Feb"/>
                        <data columnid="11" name="Feb"/>
                        <data columnid="21" name="Feb"/>
                        <data columnid="31" name="Feb"/>
                        <data columnid="41" name="Y-T-D(Feb)"/>
                        <data columnid="51" name="Y-T-D(Feb)"/>
                        <data columnid="61" name="Y-T-D(Feb)"/>
                        <data columnid="71" name="Y-T-D(Feb)"/>
                </header>
                <header rowid="2">
                        <data columnid="01" name="Actual"/>
                        <data columnid="11" name="Budget"/>
                        <data columnid="21" name="Fav/(Unfav) $"/>
                        <data columnid="31" name="Fav/(Unfav) %"/>
                        <data columnid="41" name="Actual"/>
                        <data columnid="51" name="Budget"/>
                        <data columnid="61" name="Fav/(Unfav) $"/>
                        <data columnid="71" name="Fav/(Unfav) %"/>
                </header>
        </column_header>

And I'm trying to get the results to look like this:

        <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
bordercolor="#111111">
                <tr>            
                        <td colspan="8">2003</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                        <td colspan="4">Feb</td>
                        <td colspan="4">Y-T-D(Feb)</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                        <td>Actual</td>
                        <td>Budget</td>
                        <td>Fav/(Unfav) $</td>
                        <td>Fav/(Unfav) %</td>
                        <td>Actual</td>
                        <td>Budget</td>
                        <td>Fav/(Unfav) $</td>
                        <td>Fav/(Unfav) %</td>
                </tr>
        </table>

Basically I'm doing grouping, which I have seen numerous postings for, but
couldn't find anything that dealt with actual colspans and the such.  My
first idea was to use the "following-sibling::data[1]/@name = @name" test to
keep track of how many columns to span.  If the above test was false, I
would draw the table cell using the current colspan counter.  Otherwise, if
the above test was true, then I would skip drawing the table cell and
increment the colspan counter.

Therein lies my problem as XSLT doesn't have counters and, according to
everything I've read, if I wise in the ways of XSLT (which I'm not, but I'm
trying!) then I'd know how to do this without one!

But I really can't get my procedural-coding mind to figure this out in XSLT!

Any suggestions? I'm sure this is a simple one for the gurus...

Thanks a lot,
Leo Hart



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