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Re: [xsl] Can a single XPath statement duplicate the functionality of this verbose statement?

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At 2011-10-23 17:10 -0700, Mark wrote:

Although they do have the virtue of giving me my desired output, can the following sequence of statements be replaced by a more generalized (shorter and simpler) XPath statement without the repetitive "when" tests shown below?

<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@souvenir-sheet">
<xsl:copy-of select="if (../Location/@souvenir-sheet) then ../Location/@souvenir-sheet else if (../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0' "/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="@minisheet">
<xsl:copy-of select="if(../Location/@minisheet) then ../Location/@minisheet else if(../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0'"/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="@booklet">
<xsl:copy-of select="if(../Location/@booklet) then ../Location/@booklet else if(../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0'"/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="@se-tenant">
<xsl:copy-of select="if (../Location/@se-tenant) then ../Location/@se-tenant else if(../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0'"/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="@coupon">
<xsl:copy-of select=" if (../Location/@coupon) then ../Location/@coupon else if(../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0'"/>
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>

My XPath is very weak.

I tried:
<xsl:copy-of select="if (../Location[name(@*)=name(@*)]) then ../Location/@* else if(../Location/@denomination) then ../Location/@denomination else '0'"></xsl:copy-of>

Presuming you have only a single attribute (the name() function will abend if you have more than one), this may work for you ... it expresses a sequence and selects the first member of that sequence:

<xsl:copy select="( ../Location[name(@*)=name(current()/@*)] ,
                    ../Location/@denomination ,
                    '0' )[1]"/>

This relies on the XPath 2 behaviour of sequence ( (), x ) collapsing to ( x ).

Note the use of current() to return the node that was current at the start of evaluating the XPath expression (also available in XPath 1).

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . . Ken

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