Change multiple elements of type X for a single type Y

[William]

Hello.

I have in my XML 10000s of elements formatted thus:

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<row id="1" value="488" />

<row ... />

<row id="499" value="488" />

<row id="500" value="221" />

<row ... />

<row id="1924" value="221" />

<row id="1925" value="3213" />

<.../>

However the Schema supports an alternative format:

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<sparse start="1" end="499" value="488"/>

<sparse start="500" end="1924" value="221"/>

<sparse start="1925" end="11044" value="3213"/>

Using the <sparse> element type eliminates a lot of 'redundant' XML and results in a reduced parse time.

So I would like to create a template | function that allows me to swap out the <row> elements in favour of the <sparse>, but in order to do this I need to obtain the following information.

A sequence containing the position() or the @id of each change in value, so I can use it (-1) for the @end and as it is for the @starts. I can of course get a sequence of @value using distinct-values().

Which brings up another question why when I do this:

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<xsl:variable name="values" select="distinct-values(./row/@value)" as="xs:integer*"/>

<xsl:message select="'Value ', $values[1]"/>

<xsl:message select="'Value ', $values[2]"/>

Do I get what I deem to be the correct output:

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Value 488

Value 221

But doing this:

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<xsl:for-each select="1 to count($values)">

    <xsl:element name="sparse">

        <xsl:attribute name="pos" select="position()"/>

        <xsl:attribute name="value" select="$values[position()]"/>

    </xsl:element>

</xsl:for-each> 

Results in this !:

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<sparse pos="1" value="488 221"/>

<sparse pos="2" value="488 221"/>

Or is this another topic?

--
William