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RE: [xsl] Complex recursion in XSLT 1.0

2008-02-18 04:02:09
Yes, this is quite a tricky one: the conventional recursive algorithms for
traversing graphs are written in a procedural style that involves keeping a
list of the nodes that have already been visited (or marking them as
visited, which amounts to the same thing).

The key to the solution is the idea of "sibling recursion" - only here, it's
not siblings at the XML level that you are concerned with, but siblings in
the topic graph. Specifically, suppose a topic A contains references to
topics X, Y, and Z. Now the way that you process Z depends on the way that X
and Y were processed, which means you can't process X, Y, and Z
independently (which is what will happen if you use xsl:for-each or
xsl:apply-templates to iterate over them). Instead you need to call
something that processes X, which in turn calls something that processes Y,
which in turn calls something that processes Z. That way, the
processing-of-X can pass a parameter to the processing-of-Y, such as the
list of topics already visited.

And then of course you need to do this through multiple levels so it's not
really sibling recursion but descendant recursion, so that if X has
sub-topics P, Q, and R, then it's the processing of R that invokes the
processing of Y. This means that the parameters you pass on each step must
include (a) the set of nodes already visited, and (b) a stack containing the
next node to be visited at each level; the recursion terminates when this
stack becomes empty.

This is do-able but it's not easy. Here's a sketch of another approach:

I'm not clear if you need to detect cycles. If you know that the input is an
acyclic graph and the requirement is to visit each node once, then you might
like to build a list of all paths, and then eliminate duplicate paths to the
same node by using grouping (which is easier of course in XSLT 2.0). Then in
the next phase of processing you only follow the paths that were not
eliminated.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/


-----Original Message-----
From: Marroc [mailto:marrocdanderfluff(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)co(_dot_)in] 
Sent: 18 February 2008 10:18
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: [xsl] Complex recursion in XSLT 1.0

Hi all,

I haven't written to the list with this one up until now 
because I doubted my ability to describe it adequately for 
you. But now I'm really stuck and I feel like it is down to 
the inadequacies of XSLT 1.0 so I wanted to find out if I'm 
right or wrong. 

Basically, I've tried every approach I can think of but each 
time I find that XSLT 1.0 lacks any kind of 'memory' of what 
it has done. I can't find a way of passing parameters back up 
the tree to effectively say 'done this one' or stop 
processing these sub-nodes now.

The scenario is that, I have a set of xhtml files that 
together describe a table of contents (toc) with different 
branches expanded. I only ever know the name of the first 
one, that is, 'toc.htm'. From toc.htm, I can read the second 
level of toc in files with names similar to 'toc41837.htm'. 
Inside these are further topic and toc filenames, potentially 
up to 5 or 6 levels deep but I'm only dealing with 3 levels 
at the moment. From these files, I need to create a mapping 
file of the form:

<mappings>
      <relationship topic="123.htm" toc="toc.htm" />
      <relationship topic="456.htm" toc="toc41837.htm" /> </mappings>

This is then used by the next xsl to relate topics to toc's 
in all hyperlinks so that they can remain synchronised when a 
page is generated server-side by asp.net.

So, I started by attempting a recursive a template that uses 
several repeated 'mode' templates level1, level2 through 
levela (to give 10).

<xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:variable "container"
              <xsl:call-template name="toc_load"
                      <xsl:with-param name="toc_name">toc.htm</
              </
      </
<!-- sort and output to output document --> </xsl:template>

<xsl:template "load_toc" open first document and process links
      <apply-templates select="a"
              <xsl:with-param "toc_name"

<xsl:template process links to topics (a @href not starting 
with 'toc')
      <xsl:with-param "toc_name"
      < create mapping using current @href and current toc_name

<xsl:template process links to other toc's
      <xsl:with param "toc_name"
              but don't process same toc again
              <xsl:call-template "load_toc2"
                      <xsl:with-param name="toc_name" 
select="toc_name" />
                      <xsl:with-param name="toc_name2" 
select="@href" />

<!-- Level2 -->       

<xsl:template "load_toc2"
      same again with mode="level2" and param toc_name and toc_name2

<xsl:template process links to topics (a @href not starting 
with 'toc') mode="level2"

<xsl:template process links to other toc's
      <params toc_name and toc_name2
      <call toc_load3

<!-- Level3 -->

etc. to Levela passing params for all previously opened tocs


Now the problem was that each toc mentions all the earlier 
tocs and all the later tocs as follows:

              <a href="toc.htm" target="TOC"><img 
src="minus.gif" /></a><a href="1598.htm">Topic abc</a><br/>
expanding-->  <a href="toc15974.htm"><img src="plus.gif" /></a><a
href="1601.htm">Topic def</a><br/>
topic-->      <a href="1604.htm">Topic hij</a><br/>
              <a href="toc159710.htm" target="TOC"><img 
src="plus.gif"/></a><a href="1599.htm">Topic klm</a><br/>
              <a href="toc159717.htm" target="TOC"><img 
src="plus.gif"/></a><a href="1600.htm">Topic nop</a><br/>

So, once Levela is finished, the transform works it's way up 
to finish off the stack of templates it has completed. But, 
it has now forgotten that it processed that Levela template 
and so it is called again where it is found.

I need a way to either give the transform an overall memory 
of what it has already processed, or, stop processing 
subsequent nodes once the first toc file has been called from 
within a branch. 

I hope someone can suggest some sensible ideas on this one 
because I've tried everytning I can find and still can't get 
this particular recursion to work!

Richard


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