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Asked: 2026-05-11T08:20:12+00:00

At work I’ve been given the fun task of generating PDFs with XSL. The

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At work I’ve been given the fun task of generating PDFs with XSL. The XML structure I’m working with is similar to

<records>     <topLevel>         <topLevelID></topLevelID>         <secondLevel>             <secondLevelID></secondLevelID>             <thirdLevel>             </thirdLevel>             <thirdLevel>             </thirdLevel>         </secondLevel>     </topLevel>     <topLevel>         <topLevelID></topLevelID>         <secondLevel>             <secondLevelID></secondLevelID>             <thirdLevel>             </thirdLevel>             <thirdLevel>             </thirdLevel>         </secondLevel>     </topLevel> </records>

I would try to give a more meaningful example of the XML, but I don’t feel like approaching any legal boundaries that may exist. With that XML structure, I have to output a block of text in the PDF for every thirdLevel node. The XSL I have so far is like

<xsl:for-each select ='topLevel'>               <xsl:variable name='topID' select='topLevelID'/>     <xsl:for-each select ='secondLevel'>         <xsl:variable name='secondID' select='secondLevelID'/>         <xsl:for-each select='thirdLevel'>                         <fo:block-container position='absolute' height='12.8pt' width='220.8pt' left='160pt' display-align='auto'>                 <xsl:attribute name='top'>                     <xsl:value-of select='concat(193 + [whatshouldgohere]), 'pt')'/>                 </xsl:attribute>                 <fo:block font-size='7pt'>                                               <xsl:call-template name='insertThirdLevel'/>                 </fo:block>             </fo:block-container>         </xsl:for-each>     </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each>

Basically, I need to add some value to the top attribute to make the text for each thirdLevel node appear on its own line. I’ve tried using combinations of adding/multiplying by the ID (starts at 1 and increases by 1 for each set) and position(), but I can’t seem to get it right.

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1 Answer

  1. I think you should really look into <xsl:apply-templates>, it can save you a lot of typing.

    Simplified version:

    <xsl:variable name='line-height' select='10' />  <xsl:template match='/records'>   <xsl:apply-templates select='//thirdLevel' /> </xsl:template>  <xsl:template match='thirdLevel'>   <xsl:variable name='top' select='193 + position() * $line-height' />   <fo:block-container top='{concat($top , 'pt')}'>     <fo:block font-size='7pt'>                                 <xsl:call-template name='insertThirdLevel'/>     </fo:block>   </fo:block-container> </xsl:template>  <xsl:template name='insertThirdLevel'>   Third Level! </xsl:template>

    Simplified output (‘fo’ namespace excluded):

    <fo:block-container top='203pt'>   <fo:block font-size='7pt'>     Third Level!   </fo:block> </fo:block-container> <fo:block-container top='213pt'>   <fo:block font-size='7pt'>     Third Level!   </fo:block> </fo:block-container> <fo:block-container top='223pt'>   <fo:block font-size='7pt'>     Third Level!   </fo:block> </fo:block-container> <fo:block-container top='233pt'>   <fo:block font-size='7pt'>     Third Level!   </fo:block> </fo:block-container>
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