Member Avatar for george08.08

I am trying to get my head around the functions etc in xslt with xml. I have made a dummy xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="books.xslt"?>

<books>
    <book>
        <title>Hello Dolly</title>
        <author>John Thumb</author>
            <readers>
                <young_readers>17</young_readers>
                <older_readers>23</older_readers>
                <total_readers>40</total_readers>
            </readers>
    </book>
    <book>
        <title>Goodbye John Thumb</title>
        <author>Dolly Smith</author>
            <readers>
                <young_readers>12</young_readers>
                <older_readers>3</older_readers>
                <total_readers>15</total_readers>
            </readers>
    </book>
    <book>
        <title>A Boat Afloat</title>
        <author>Mike Sailor</author>
            <readers>
                <young_readers>19</young_readers>
                <older_readers>22</older_readers>
                <total_readers>41</total_readers>
            </readers>
    </book>
    <book>
        <title>Five Drummers Drumming</title>
        <author>Carol Christmas</author>
            <readers>
                <young_readers>11</young_readers>
                <older_readers>2</older_readers>
                <total_readers>13</total_readers>
            </readers>
    </book>
</books>

and what I wish to do is manipulate the reader's data to get different output. For example, sort all the young readers, find the highest and see which book this figure belongs to. The result for that would be "A Boat Afloat". I am totally new to XML and XSLT and what I know about other language functions just don't work here. This is my XSLT for the sum of readers...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <html>
            <head>
                <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
                <title>books</title>

            </head>

<body>
    <h2>Books and Their Readers</h2>

        <p>Total Yound Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//young_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>
        <p>Total Older Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//older_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>
        <p>Grand Total Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//total_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>

</body>

        </html>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

This all works. I just want to learn the functions a bit better so any hints will help. I also feel there might be a way of adding up the readers per book without hard coding the results for total_readers. Thanks in advance

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by george08.08

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for xml_looser

with the help of xpath function and templates
one can modify the result XML

an example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <html>
            <head>
                <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
                <title>books</title>
            </head>
            <body>
                <h2>Books and Their Readers</h2>
                <p>Total Yound Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//young_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>
                <p>Total Older Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//older_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>
                <p>Grand Total Readers<xsl:text> - </xsl:text><xsl:value-of select="sum((//total_readers)[.!=''])"/></p>
                <table border="solid">
                    <caption>bookslist</caption>
                    <tr>
                        <td>title</td>
                        <td>author</td>
                        <td>Young</td>
                        <td>old</td>
                    </tr>
                    <xsl:apply-templates select="books/book"/>
                </table>
                <p></p>
                <table border="solid">
                    <caption>Bestseller young readers</caption>
                    <tr>
                        <td>title</td>
                        <td>author</td>
                    </tr>
                    <xsl:apply-templates select="books/book">
                        <xsl:sort select="readers/young_readers" order="descending" data-type="number" />
                    </xsl:apply-templates>
                </table>
                <p></p>
                <table border="solid">
                    <caption>Bestseller older readers</caption>
                    <tr>
                        <td>title</td>
                        <td>author</td>
                    </tr>
                    <xsl:apply-templates select="books/book">
                        <xsl:sort select="readers/older_readers" order="descending" data-type="number" />
                    </xsl:apply-templates>
                </table>
                <p></p>
                <table border="solid">
                    <caption>Bestseller all readers</caption>
                    <tr>
                        <td>title</td>
                        <td>author</td>
                    </tr>
                    <xsl:apply-templates select="books/book">
                        <xsl:sort select="readers/total_readers" order="descending" data-type="number" />
                    </xsl:apply-templates>
                </table>
            </body>
        </html>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="book">
        <tr>
            <td>
                <xsl:value-of select="title"/>
            </td>
            <td>
                <xsl:value-of select="author"/>
            </td>
            <td>
                <xsl:value-of select="readers/young_readers"/>
            </td>
            <td>
                <xsl:value-of select="readers/older_readers"/>
            </td>
            <td>
            <xsl:variable select="readers/child::*[position()&lt;3]" name="rc"/>
            <xsl:value-of select="sum($rc)"/>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

result

<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html">
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <title>books</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>Books and Their Readers</h2>
    <p>Total Yound Readers - 59</p>
    <p>Total Older Readers - 50</p>
    <p>Grand Total Readers - 109</p>
    <table border="solid">
      <caption>bookslist</caption>
      <tr>
        <td>title</td>
        <td>author</td>
        <td>Young</td>
        <td>old</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Hello Dolly</td>
        <td>John Thumb</td>
        <td>17</td>
        <td>23</td>
        <td>40</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Goodbye John Thumb</td>
        <td>Dolly Smith</td>
        <td>12</td>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>15</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>A Boat Afloat</td>
        <td>Mike Sailor</td>
        <td>19</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>41</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Five Drummers Drumming</td>
        <td>Carol Christmas</td>
        <td>11</td>
        <td>2</td>
        <td>13</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p></p>
    <table border="solid">
      <caption>Bestseller young readers</caption>
      <tr>
        <td>title</td>
        <td>author</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>A Boat Afloat</td>
        <td>Mike Sailor</td>
        <td>19</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>41</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Hello Dolly</td>
        <td>John Thumb</td>
        <td>17</td>
        <td>23</td>
        <td>40</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Goodbye John Thumb</td>
        <td>Dolly Smith</td>
        <td>12</td>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>15</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Five Drummers Drumming</td>
        <td>Carol Christmas</td>
        <td>11</td>
        <td>2</td>
        <td>13</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p></p>
    <table border="solid">
      <caption>Bestseller older readers</caption>
      <tr>
        <td>title</td>
        <td>author</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Hello Dolly</td>
        <td>John Thumb</td>
        <td>17</td>
        <td>23</td>
        <td>40</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>A Boat Afloat</td>
        <td>Mike Sailor</td>
        <td>19</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>41</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Goodbye John Thumb</td>
        <td>Dolly Smith</td>
        <td>12</td>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>15</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Five Drummers Drumming</td>
        <td>Carol Christmas</td>
        <td>11</td>
        <td>2</td>
        <td>13</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p></p>
    <table border="solid">
      <caption>Bestseller all readers</caption>
      <tr>
        <td>title</td>
        <td>author</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>A Boat Afloat</td>
        <td>Mike Sailor</td>
        <td>19</td>
        <td>22</td>
        <td>41</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Hello Dolly</td>
        <td>John Thumb</td>
        <td>17</td>
        <td>23</td>
        <td>40</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Goodbye John Thumb</td>
        <td>Dolly Smith</td>
        <td>12</td>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>15</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Five Drummers Drumming</td>
        <td>Carol Christmas</td>
        <td>11</td>
        <td>2</td>
        <td>13</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>

in table 3 you can see that redundant data in the XML file are available

Helmut Hagemann

Member Avatar for george08.08

Helmut, thank you so much. I would never have come up with the combination of coding that is involved in getting these results. I think what you have done for me is a great start for me to see the mechanations of how the xslt functoins work. Thank you again, Patricia

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