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[xsl] Re: what does xsl:sort do if "select" doesn't evaluate to anything?

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"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0303182306400.26300-100000@xxxxxxx
>
>   what is the defined behavior for <xsl:sort> if the "select="
> expression is not satisfied by anything?
>
>   eg., i want to process a bunch of <car> elements, sorted by their
> engine <displacement> values, but some of the <car> elements have no
> such element?

If the "data-type" attribute of xsl:sort is "text" then:

For these elements the sort key "displacement" will evaluate to the empty
string. Depending on how a particular XSLT processor implements string
comparison in xsl:sort all "car" elements with no "displacement" children
will be sorted together (with "car" elements that have a "displacement" with
empty string value) as a group either preceding or following all "car"
elements, which have "dis[lacement" children with non-empty string value.

If the "data-type" attribute of xsl:sort is "number" then the value of the
sort key "displacement" will be NaN -- and they will be sorted again as a
group -- first or last depending on the implementation.



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Cheers,

Dimitre Novatchev.
http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL





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