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Re: [xsl] Generating numbering for cross-references (LONG)

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At 18:06 17-10-2001, Peter Flynn wrote:

In a typical research document, an author needs to make many
cross-references.  XML provides ID and IDREF attributes for this
purpose, and lots of DTDs are written to make use of them. I'm having
a problem instatiating three classes of numeric cross-reference in
XSLT, namely:

a. Tables and figures, as in `See <ref to="foo"/>' where
   you have <table id="foo"> or <figure id="foo">

In normal processing of the document text, you use <xsl:number> to
assign counters to tables, figures, chapters, sections, bib entries,
etc. At serialization, these numbers get values in the normal way,
but those values are not available or accessible to other places
in the stylesheet because the language is side-effect free. You
cannot reach over to the relevant part of the tree (by ID) and
pluck a copy of a number which has not yet been generated.

********************************************************************
At the point where a reference is made, what is the XPath expression
you need to generate the number which will be the value which will
eventually get assigned to the target?
********************************************************************

Does this *need* to happen in a single XPath? The way I usually handle this is:

<xsl:template match="ref">
  <xsl:apply-templates select="id(@to)" mode="ref"/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="table" mode="ref">
  <xsl:text>Table </xsl:text>
  <xsl:number/>
</xsl:template>

If you *have* to do it in XPath, well... you're headed in the right direction, but I'm not entirely sure it's possible.

-Chris
--
Christopher R. Maden, Principal Consultant, HMM Consulting Int'l, Inc.
DTDs/schemas - conversion - ebooks - publishing - Web - B2B - training
<URL: http://www.hmmci.com/ > <URL: http://crism.maden.org/consulting/ >
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