Re: [xsl] How Can I Reference previous XML in Subsequent Iterations?

Wow. Thanks for all the help!

I'll have to digest it a bit later on, but this sure beats the sound  
of crickets chirping I've had on other forums.
Someone posted in another thread that "XSLT is dead," but I think  
that it is really just not being explained/evangelized well enough  
(which is what is making XML in general such a tough sell). People  
like me, who have a solid background in computer science, aren't very  
common. I can hunt down information and sort through chaff, but your  
average Web designer can't do this as easily. It can take them years  
to build up a reference schema, so to speak, and XML/XSL is presented  
as a completely new "paradigm," with no connection to their known  
schema. As has been pointed out, the thinking needs to be different.  
XSLT starts with the assumption that the learner has a fairly solid  
understanding of XML first (especially namespaces -Excedrin Headache  
#2), which is a brick wall barrier to many people who would otherwise  
enthusiastically embrace the advantages of XSLT.
I'm no XSLT expert, but I have already developed a site that does  
automatic transforms for WML 1, WML 2 or XHTML, depending upon the  
user agent. When I show this to people who do regular Web sites,  
their jaws drop. They would LOVE to be able to do it. However, when I  
start explaining how I do it, they get all googly-eyed and start  
snoring.
The problem is to bring XML to the Proletariat. Not sure how this is  
best handled. W3schools has a fairly good tutorial, but even that is  
fairly light on the "big picture."
On Apr 18, 2007, at 12:22 PM, Abel Braaksma wrote:

> Chris M. wrote:
> > Well, here we have a node-set, not the layout in the original XML.  
> > In this case, it is the same, and crucial to the output.
> > I found out the hard way that a sorted node-set is not iterated in  
> > the sorted order, but the order in the original predicate. I am  
> > also limited to using XPath 1.0 (the libxslt implementation used  
> > in PHP 5), so I miss out on some very nice XPath 2.0 functions).
> No, you are not limited to XPath/XSLT 1.0. With PHP you can call  
> anything from outside that language. Actually, that is what you are  
> already doing (libxslt is written in C++, not in PHP). You can  
> choose to use Saxon 8.9 or Gestalt, the first is in .NET and Java,  
> the latter in Eiffel, but both can be called from PHP with only a  
> little trouble.
> Though your current problem is fairly easily solvable by XSLT 1.0  
> alone (but you may quickly find it limited if you start to use if  
> more).
> Everything, both in XSLT 1.0 and 2.0 is "iterated" in document  
> order. If you want to sort something, you can do so in XSLT with  
> the xsl:sort instruction (which sorts the result, not the input).  
> Of course you can sort the content of your document before it gets  
> to XSLT, but if all you need is to sort the output, you can stick  
> to XSLT alone. As a matter of fact, I have never seen a use case  
> where I needed the order of the input different than the document  
> order. Focus on the output, not the input (it is a declarative  
> language, remember).
> Cheers,
> -- Abel
>
> --~------------------------------------------------------------------
> XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> To unsubscribe, go to: http://lists.mulberrytech.com/xsl-list/
> or e-mail: <mailto:xsl-list-unsubscribe(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>
> --~--
Chris Marshall
chris at getridofthiswholelongthingybecauseitstoconfusescrapers  
littlegreenviper dot com
http://www.cmarshall.net/




--~------------------------------------------------------------------
XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
To unsubscribe, go to: http://lists.mulberrytech.com/xsl-list/
or e-mail: <mailto:xsl-list-unsubscribe(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>
--~--