You are not using XSLT 2.0 to its full potential.
The solution is as easy as this:
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>
<xsl:output method="text"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each-group select="*/author"
group-by="substring(name/@file-as,1,1)"
>
<xsl:text>

</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="current-grouping-key()"/>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
<xsl:for-each select="current-group()">
<xsl:value-of select="name/@file-as"/>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:for-each-group>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
and when applied on the provided xml document it produces the wanted result:
A
Adams, Douglas
Anderson, Kevin J.
Anthony, Piers
Archer, Jeffrey
B
Baldacci, David
Ball, Margaret
Bradley, Marion Zimmer
C
Carcaterra, Lorenzo
Card, Orson Scott
Chalker, Jack L.
D
Dahl, Roald
Daley, Brian
Dann, Jack
--
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
---------------------------------------
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
---------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk
-------------------------------------
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what
you're doing is work or play
On 3/3/07, Kevin Grover <kevin(_at_)kevingrover(_dot_)net> wrote:
I have an XSLT/XPath Question that I've been beating my head against
for a while.
I have a list of authors with a name element and a file-as attribute
(XPATH: /booklist/author/name/@file-as). I currently build a Table of
Contents sorted by the author/name/@file-as attribute. That works OK.
I want to add further markup (by putting authors in groups by the
first character of their last name).
I can get the first character of the last name, I've even created a
key that allows me to access the nodes of authors by the first
character in the last name (see the commented out section of the b.xsl
file included below). However, I can not figure out how to get a list
of distinct characters (from the last names) so that I can iterate
over them and generate my list.
Here are stripped down example source files:
Exmaple author file: (file a.xml)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<booklist>
<author>
<name file-as="Adams, Douglas">Douglas Adams</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Anderson, Kevin J.">Kevin J. Anderson</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Anthony, Piers">Piers Anthony</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Archer, Jeffrey">Jeffrey Archer</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Baldacci, David">David Baldacci</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Ball, Margaret">Margaret Ball</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Bradley, Marion Zimmer">Marion Zimmer Bradley</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Carcaterra, Lorenzo">Lorenzo Carcaterra</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Card, Orson Scott">Orson Scott Card</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Chalker, Jack L.">Jack L. Chalker</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Dahl, Roald">Roald Dahl</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Daley, Brian">Brian Daley</name>
</author>
<author>
<name file-as="Dann, Jack">Jack Dann</name>
</author>
</booklist>
I can extract the authors and generate a table of contents with the
following XSLT: (b.xsl)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>
<xsl:output method="xml"/>
<xsl:output indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:key name="alet" match="//author" use="substring(name/@file-as,1,1)"/>
<xsl:template match="/booklist">
<xsl:call-template name="gen-toc"/>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Generate Table of Contents -->
<xsl:template name="gen-toc">
<div id="toc" class="toc">
<!--
<h1>Test</h1>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="key('alet','A')">
<li><xsl:value-of select="name/@file-as"/></li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
-->
<h1>Table of Contents (by Author)</h1>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="//author/name">
<xsl:sort select="@file-as"/>
<li><a href="#{generate-id(..)}"><xsl:value-of
select="@file-as"/></a></li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
</div>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
This works. It generates this: (out.xml)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<div id="toc" class="toc">
<h1>Table of Contents (by Author)</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#id91524">Adams, Douglas</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91570">Anderson, Kevin J.</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91578">Anthony, Piers</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91588">Archer, Jeffrey</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91597">Baldacci, David</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91607">Ball, Margaret</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91617">Bradley, Marion Zimmer</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91627">Carcaterra, Lorenzo</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93622">Card, Orson Scott</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93633">Chalker, Jack L.</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93643">Dahl, Roald</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93653">Daley, Brian</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93663">Dann, Jack</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
I want to change that so that I have the authors in subsections, with
the first letter of their last names as the the main entry, like so
A
//author/name/@file-as[.=='A']
B
//author/name/@file-as[.=='B']
etc..
Like this output: (out-desired.xml)
[This was hand edited, I have not yet figured out how to automatically
generate it.]
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<div id="toc" class="toc">
<h1>Table of Contents (by Author)</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<a name="A">A</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#id91524">Adams, Douglas</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91570">Anderson, Kevin J.</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91578">Anthony, Piers</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91588">Archer, Jeffrey</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91597">Baldacci, David</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a name="B">B</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#id91607">Ball, Margaret</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id91617">Bradley, Marion Zimmer</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a name="C">C</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#id91627">Carcaterra, Lorenzo</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93622">Card, Orson Scott</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93633">Chalker, Jack L.</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a name="D">D</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#id93643">Dahl, Roald</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93653">Daley, Brian</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#id93663">Dann, Jack</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
I've tried some XPath 2 stuff and XQuery. I can get a list of first
letters using XQuery (and thus XPath 2)
For example: (file fl.xq)
for $a in //author/name/substring(@file-as,1,1)
return
<c>{$a}</c>
Generates a list of the characters of the last name (although not unique).
I tried embedding something like the above "for $a in.." into an XSLT
2.0 stylesheet, and assign it to a variable, but I get an error from
saxon when I tried it.
Something like this is desired.... (with UNIQUE-SET-OF-FIRST-LETTERS)
replaced with something that works. I set this to XSLT 2, and tried
"$letters//l" in place of that place-holder text
(UNIQUE-SET-OF-FIRST-LETTERS). It generated the Letter items A B C
.., but all of the sub <ul>s where empty.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml"/>
<xsl:output indent="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<xsl:key name="alet" match="//author" use="substring(name/@file-as,1,1)"/>
<!--
<xsl:variable name="letters">
<l>A</l>
<l>B</l>
<l>C</l>
<l>D</l>
<l>E</l>
</xsl:variable>
-->
<xsl:template match="/booklist">
<xsl:call-template name="gen-toc"/>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Generate Table of Contents -->
<xsl:template name="gen-toc">
<div id="toc" class="toc">
<h1>Table of Contents (by Author)</h1>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="UNIQUE-SET-OF-FIRST-LETTERS">
<xsl:variable name="lc" select="."/>
<li>
<a>
<xsl:attribute name="name" select="$lc"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$lc"/>
</a>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="key('alet',$lc)">
<xsl:sort select="name/@file-as"/>
<li>
<a href="#{generate-id(.)}">
<xsl:value-of select="name/@file-as"/>
</a>
</li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
</li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
</div>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Hopefully, I didn't include too much detail.
Any help appreciated. Thanks.
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