I would certainly tackle this as a multi-pass transformation, just to keep
my head clear. It's not clear to me entirely what the phases are, for
example is there always a date in the top entry on each page? But once
you've worked that out, I don't think any of the phases are really that
difficult.
For example, filling in the missing dates is simply
<xsl:template match="date[not(normalize-space)]"
<date>
<xsl:value-of select="../preceding-sibling::date[normalize-space()]"/>
</date>
</xsl:template>
Similarly, converting the dates to ISO format is no great hassle; and when
you've done that, the sort should be easy.
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Yau [mailto:eyau(_at_)vstrading(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk]
Sent: 16 August 2006 18:57
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: [xsl] Interesting problem: Combing tables sections
into one table
Hi,
I wanted to float this by everyone. I have a very
complicated XSLT problem (imho), and want to seek opinions as
to how best to proceed with it.
Hope someone's up for the challenge, as it baffles my
relatively small XSLT knowledge.
I'm getting through XML from a data-extraction system
that has been used on phone bills. The phone bills are
normally folded in half and stapled in middle in a booklet format.
The XML looks something like this:
<page no='3'>
...
<t-left>
<tr>
<date> 26 Jan </date>
<time> 11:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date> </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date>27 Jan </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tf>
... footer info ...
</tf>
</t-left>
...
<t-right>
<tr>
<date> 26 feb </date>
<time> 11:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date> </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date>27 feb </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tf>
... footer info ...
</tf>
</t-right>
</page>
<page no='4'>
...
<t-left>
<tr>
<date> 28 Jan </date>
<time> 11:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date> </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date>29 Jan </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tf>
... footer info ...
</tf>
</t-left>
...
</page>
What I am aiming for should look something like this:
<table>
<tr>
<date> 28 Jan </date>
<time> 11:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date>28 Jan </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tr>
<date>29 Jan </date>
<time> 12:45 </time>
<destination> XXX </destination>
</tr>
<tf>
... footer info ...
</tf>
</table>
The two main challenges I'm faced with is therefore:
1) reordering the entries as they should appear
- the order the appear in the XML is not the right order due
to the folding over the booklet
2) filling 'empty' dates with preceeding dates
I've considered the following approaches:
1) A 'pull' approach where I recurse over the tables
bring them together, doing the sorting.
- The ordering of the pages is hard to predict.
There is a pattern, but trying to code this in XSLT far
defeats me. I think this is much the harder approach.
The main problem I've found is that the way you
recurse depends on the total number of sections. So I'd have
to find some way of counting this first.
2) Trying to sort by date. This is tricky because the
months are not in number format, and there are lots of
missing dates that I'd have to fill in at the same time. I'm
assuming it's possible to do this as a 1-pass approach, but
it would certainly be simpler as a 2-pass.
Any thoughts on this welcome. Anyone have any
experience of this? Which approach do you think is likely to
work best?
Many thanks in advance,
Ed
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