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Re: expression syntax

2004-11-14 04:16:35
Hey Alan,

The two things to consider when using a XSLT 1.0 processor (MSXML3 or MSXML4 -- both are possibilities as far as what version of MSXML is on your system -- are XSLT 1.0 processors):

- There is no date comparison function.
- In 1.0 there is type support for the 4 XPath data types - string, number, boolean, node-set.

With this in mind your element date value of 2004-11-14 is viewed as a string, not a number. So using < = or > will return no possible matches for anything that is not a number. In your case, given the order of your date entities you are in luck as you can simply use the translate() function to convert the '-' (dash) to '' (empty string or empty space, however you want to term it. translate(date, '-', '') will accomplish this task. This will then allow a simple type conversion from a string to a number by using the number funtion. The simplest way to do this is to wrap the previous translate function inside the number function as so: number(translate(date, '-', ''))

To get the results you are looking for my suggestion would be to take the above conversion functions and use them within xsl:apply-templates, using the match attribute of a xsl:template element to match the 'date' element and make a copy of that particular nodes contents. So something like this:

<xsl:param name="date" select="'20041114'"/>
<!-- NOTE: by using param instead of variable you allow yourself the ability to pass the value in from outside the template -->

<xsl:template match="/">
   <dates>
<xsl:apply-templates select="performance/date[number(translate(., '-', '')) &gt;= $today]"/>
   </dates>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="date">
   <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
</xsl:template>

Should be much more effective for you in gaining access to the nodes that match your number based comparison. NOTE: Something to keep in mind... The translate function above will only make a copy of the string contained within the date element and use that for comparison. The actual value will retain its original '-' delimited string version. The matching template will make a copy of each matching element from the specified criteria (complete copy of the element, its attributes (if any), and its value). So don't be surprised to see the dashes still in place when looking at your output.

Hope this helps!

<M:D/>

Alan Divorty wrote:

I am trying to compare two dates, one in the xml data against an external
parameter holding today's date.

The format of each is yyyy-mm-dd

<xsl:for-each select="performance[date = $today]">

successfully processes records with today's date.  However, I want to select
all records equal to or later than today, but

<xsl:for-each select="performance[date &gt;= $today]">  does not select any
records.

Is my syntax wrong?

I'm using IE6 to process the files.

Thanks,
Alan




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