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Re: [xsl] Plain Text Handling in XSLT Output

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On 6/7/06, Georg Hohmann <georg.hohmann@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

i bother with the handling of plain text in xslt. My problem is that i
have to insert plain text combined with values to the output depending
on if a node exists or not (which is a very common task i guess). So
there are many xsl:if test=exists(...) statements inside my xslt.

1. Prob: White spaces
If i have a xslt like this:
...
<xsl:value-of select="Firstname"/> <xsl:value-of select="Lastname"/>
...
I always get this output:
...
FirstnameLastname
...
How do i insert a white space between (these) two values?

Whitespace only text nodes get dropped by default - that means any
text node consisting soley of whitespace (like the whitespace used to
indent your XSLT).

So with that in mind, use <xsl:text> </xsl:text> or <xsl:value-of
select="concat(Firstname, ' ', Lastname)"/>

2. Prob: Line Feed & Carriage Return
The xslt:
...
<person>
   <xsl:if test="exists(mds:node17)">
      <name>
         <xsl:value-of select="node17"/>
         <xsl:if test="exists(node18)">
            (<xsl:value-of select="node18"/>)
         </xsl:if>
      </name>
   </xsl:if>
</person>
...
This is the expected output:
...
Lastname (Function)
...
But this is the real output:
...
Lastname
              (Function)
...
How can i control if a linefeed is added or not? Is there a possibilty
to remove or add a linefeed with xslt to the output?

Here the text node contains a '(' so it doesn't get dropped, and the
text node consists of the carriage return and indetation that you've
used to indent your code - which is what your are seeing in your
output.  To avoid this write all the code inline, or use concat.

Also, rather than use xsl:test="exists(...)" just use apply-templates,
as then if the element exists it will be processed, otherwise it wont:

<person>
 <xsl:apply-templates/>
</person>

<xsl:template match="mds:node17">
 <name>
   <xsl:value-of select="."/>
   <xsl:apply-templates/>
 </name>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="mds:node18">
 <xsl:value-of select="concat('(', node18, ')'"/>
<xsl:template>

cheers
andrew

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