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Re: Determining if the first child is a para element

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Ken,

At 10:15 AM 11/9/00 +0000, Jeni wrote:

So, to test whether the first child node of
the current node is an element, use:

  <xsl:if test="child::node()[1][self::*]">
     ...
  </xsl:if>

Also be careful in this case that you have accounted for the possibility of any whitespace-only text nodes. So, for example, if your document read:

<CHAPTER>
  <para>Here's my first child element, a para.</para>
...
</CHAPTER>

Jeni's test above will fail on account of the whitespace-only text node preceding the para element (it contains a carriage return and two space characters).

Adjust for this by saying

<xsl:strip-space elements="CHAPTER"/>

at the top level, or altering your test (somewhat horribly) to:

<xsl:if test="child::node()[not(.=normalize-space(.))][1][self::para]">
   ...
</xsl:if>

Jeni's test for whether the first element child is a para is still good, of course, since the whitespace-only nodes won't come into play then.

Regards,
Wendell

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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
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