This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Testing the Position
In addition to applying conditions to location paths, you can actually choose to select a specific node in the node set: the first, second, or even the last.
To test a node’s position:
- Type position() = n, where n is the number that identifies the position of the node within the current node set (Figure 4.3).
x s l t ... <p>These ancient wonders are <xsl:for-each select= "ancient_wonders/wonder/name [@language='English']"> <xsl:value-of select="."/> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test= "position()=last()">.</xsl:when> <xsl:when test= "position()=last()-1">, and </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise>, </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </xsl:for-each> </p> ...Figure 4.3. Here I am using position functions to format a sentence that lists all the wonders. The wonder’s name is output no matter what. If it’s in the last position, a period is also output after the name. If it’s in the second-to-last position (position() = last()–1), a comma, the word and, and a space are output after the name. Otherwise, if it’s in any other position, only the name and a space are output.
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Figure 4.4 The output from the transformation based on Figure 4.3 shows the list of the seven wonders, well-formatted with commas separating the names and a final and before the last wonder.
To find the last node in a node set:
- Type last() to get the last node.