Translate() Question

[Gadrin77]

I have data that looks like

<Root>
<Main Value="Line1|Line2.|Line3|Line4.|Line5"/>
</Root>

I'm using

Translate(@Value, "|.", ",")

to get rid of periods, and exchange the pipe character for a comma, which works fine.

what I really want to do is, once the above is done, change the comma to a comma and space ", " so it looks good in the output. I've tried Translate(Translate) but that didn't seem to work.

Any ideas?

I'm using MS XML 4 SP2 and XSL.

 

[Ben Edgington]

what I really want to do is, once the above is done, change the comma to a comma and space ", " so it looks good in the output. I've tried Translate(Translate) but that didn't seem to work.

As far as I can see translate can not lengthen strings, so you probably have to do full-blown search and replace which can be done with a recursive template, as follows. You may decide it's not worth the trouble 8^)

Your data

<Root>
<Main Value="Line1|Line2.|Line3|Line4.|Line5"/>
</Root>

with this transformation

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xslutput method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

<!-- The main template -->
<xsl:template match="/Root">

<xsl:call-template name="replace">
<xsl:with-param name="text" select="translate(Main/@Value, '.', '')"/> <xsl:with-param name="from" select="'|'"/> <xsl:with-param name="with" select="', '"/> </xsl:call-template>

</xsl:template>

<!-- This is a recursive named template for search and replace. --> <xsl:template name="replace"> <xslaram name="text"/> <xslaram name="from"/> <xslaram name="with"/> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="$from and contains($text,$from)"> <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text,$from)"/> <xsl:value-of select="$with"/> <xsl:call-template name="replace"> <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,$from)"/> <xsl:with-param name="from" select="$from"/> <xsl:with-param name="with" select="$with"/> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:when> <xsltherwise> <xsl:value-of select="$text"/> </xsltherwise> </xsl:choose> </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

gives the desired output:

Line1, Line2, Line3, Line4, Line5

Ben

 

[Gadrin77]

<!-- This is a recursive named template for search and replace. --> <xsl:template name="replace"> <xslaram name="text"/> <xslaram name="from"/> <xslaram name="with"/> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="$from and contains($text,$from)"> <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($text,$from)"/> <xsl:value-of select="$with"/> <xsl:call-template name="replace"> <xsl:with-param name="text" select="substring-after($text,$from)"/> <xsl:with-param name="from" select="$from"/> <xsl:with-param name="with" select="$with"/> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:when> <xsltherwise> <xsl:value-of select="$text"/> </xsltherwise> </xsl:choose> </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

gives the desired output:

Line1, Line2, Line3, Line4, Line5

Ben

wow, thanks a lot Ben, that's nice. I've already put that to good use.

looks like I screwed up with removing the . using Translate since it removes all the periods in the data.

oh, well, I'm off to see if I can modify it to eliminate periods at the end of each token (Line) in the data.

thanks, mucho for your help, though.

 

[Ben Edgington]

looks like I screwed up with removing the . using Translate since it removes all the periods in the data.

oh, well, I'm off to see if I can modify it to eliminate periods at the end of each token (Line) in the data.

The search and replace might be handy here too. If you first replace '.|' with '|' before replacing '|' with ', ' it will do what you require. Use an xsl variable to store the intermediate result.

Obviously you have to be sure that none of your Line* tokens has a genuine '.' at the end.

Ben

 

[Gadrin77]

The search and replace might be handy here too. If you first replace '.|' with '|' before replacing '|' with ', ' it will do what you require. Use an xsl variable to store the intermediate result.

Obviously you have to be sure that none of your Line* tokens has a genuine '.' at the end.

Ben

yes, I haven't gotten that far yet (instead spent the afternoon learning how to group output), thanks for the advice. Hopefully I'll get to it on Monday.