Re: [xsl] Can a named template return a node list?

[John <john-xsl-list@xxxxxxxx>]

Thanks a lot, that fixed it.  But now I have a new question, though not 
really expecting any response.

I am working in a .NET environment with some existing XSL extensions. 
One of these is a function that I can invoke with code such as:

<xsl:variable name="whatever" select="custom:function( 'someid', . )" />

I understand that custom:function is basically a method in a .NET class, 
which does return a pointer/reference to an existing node in the current 
XML document, and I can reference attributes of that node using 
$whatever/@attr instead of $whatever/*/@attr.  I guess this is because 
call-template always returns what I would call a string, and .NET can 
return an XPathNodeIterator (or whatever).  I like the shorter syntax 
(no /*) of the .NET method; another objection is that a programmer using 
these existing .NET extensions along with my XSL template library would 
need to know that they sometimes need to add /* to dereference variables.

Dimitre Novatchev wrote:
> >  <xsl:variable name="somenode" select="msxsl:node-set( $somedata )" />
> >  <xsl:value-of select="$somenode/@attr" />
>
>
> You are trying to get the value of an attribute of the document node
> of a temporary tree.
>
> A document nodes (root nodes in XSLT 1.0 terminology) doesn't have
> attributes as it is not an element node.
>
> Probably you meant:
>
>           <xsl:value-of select="$somenode/*/@attr" />
>
>
> Cheers,
> Dimitre Novatchev
>
> On 6/17/05, John <john-xsl-list@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Thanks.  I want to use a named template to avoid putting certain XPath
> > statements in multiple locations.  Maybe there is a better way.
> >
> > Since I don't think there is a pure XSL solution I have been trying with
> > node-set, but that's not working for me either.  This seems to give no
> > output; I am pretty sure the solution is something obvious but I don't
> > see it.
> >
> > <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
> > <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
> >  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
> >  xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt">
> >
> > <xsl:template match="*">
> >  <xsl:variable name="somedata">
> >    <xsl:call-template name="sometemplate" />
> >  </xsl:variable>
> >  <xsl:variable name="somenode" select="msxsl:node-set( $somedata )" />
> >  <xsl:value-of select="$somenode/@attr" />
> > </xsl:template>
> >
> > <xsl:template name="sometemplate">
> >  <xsl:copy-of select="/root/node1" />
> > </xsl:template>
> >
> > </xsl:stylesheet>
> >
> > And the sample data again:
> >
> > <root>
> >  <node1 attr="node1attrval">
> >    <node1a>node1atext</node1a>
> >  </node1>
> >  <node2 attr="node1attrval">
> >    <node2a>node2atext</node2a>
> >  </node2>
> > </root>
> >
> > David Carlisle wrote:
> >
> > > <xsl:variable name="somenode">
> > >     ....
> > >
> > > xsl:variable with content and no select attribute always (in xslt1)
> > > generates a result tree fragment not a node set. Therefor you can not
> > > query into the variable using XPath (or anything else) You can only copy
> > > it to the result, using copy-of or use it as a string.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > and I am hoping  to stay away from XSL extensions if possible.
> > >
> > >
> > > It's hard to avoid xx:node-set() (which is designed exactly to get round
> > > this problem) Most systems have a node-set() extension function (with
> > > mozilla's transformiix engine being the main exception)
> > >
> > > Of course if your templates are not actually creating any new nodes (as
> > > in your example) then you have an easy solution: just use xsl:variable
> > > with select as in
> > >
> > > <xsl:template match="*">
> > >   <xsl:variable name="somenode"select="/root/node1" />
> > >   <xsl:value-of select="$somenode/@attr" />
> > > </xsl:template>
> > >
> > > David