Re: [xsl] XSLT/XPath Question (Grouping Authors by First Character of Last Name)

Subject: Re: [xsl] XSLT/XPath Question (Grouping Authors by First Character of Last Name)
From: "Kevin Grover" <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 18:52:06 -0800
Perfect.  Thanks.  Just out of curiosity, is this possible
(practical?) in XSLT 1.0?

On 3/3/07, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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>&#xA;&#xA;</xsl:text>
     <xsl:value-of select="current-grouping-key()"/>
     <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>

     <xsl:for-each select="current-group()">
       <xsl:value-of select="name/@file-as"/>
       <xsl:text>&#xA;</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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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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