Question

How can I use XSLT to convert this XML file:

<file>
    <row>
        <cell></cell>
        <cell>(info...)</cell>
        <cell></cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>first name</cell>
        <cell>last name</cell>
        <cell>age</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>Jim</cell>
        <cell>Smith</cell>
        <cell>34</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>Roy</cell>
        <cell>Rogers</cell>
        <cell>22</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>Hank</cell>
        <cell>Grandier</cell>
        <cell>23</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>(info...)</cell>
        <cell></cell>
        <cell>(info...)</cell>
    </row>

    <row>
        <cell>Sally</cell>
        <cell>Cloud</cell>
        <cell>26</cell>
    </row>

    <row>
        <cell>John</cell>
        <cell>Randall</cell>
        <cell>44</cell>
    </row>  

</file>

to this XML file:

<file>
    <row>
        <cell>Jim</cell>
        <cell>34</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>Roy</cell>
        <cell>22</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>Sally</cell>
        <cell>26</cell>
    </row>
    <row>
        <cell>John</cell>
        <cell>44</cell>
    </row>  
</file>

Basically the rules are:

• only first and third column (first name and age)
• only rows within certain ranges, e.g. in the simple example above it would be rows 3-5 and rows 7-8 so I would assume I would need some kind of mapping table with this information in it

Addendum

Here is my solution using MarcoS’s tip about params:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    version="1.0">

    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="no" />

    <xsl:param name="range-1-begin"  select="3"/>
    <xsl:param name="range-1-end"  select="4"/>

    <xsl:param name="range-2-begin"  select="6"/>
    <xsl:param name="range-2-end"  select="7"/>

    <xsl:template match="file">
        <marco>
            <xsl:for-each select="row">
                <xsl:if test="(position() &gt;= $range-1-begin and position() &lt;= $range-1-end)
                    or (position() &gt;= $range-2-begin and position() &lt;= $range-2-end)">
                    <row>
                        <xsl:for-each select="cell">
                            <xsl:if test="position() = 1 or 
                                position() = 3">
                                <cell>
                                    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                                </cell>
                            </xsl:if>
                        </xsl:for-each>
                    </row>
                </xsl:if>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </marco>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Answer 1

This is a possible solution (maybe not very elegant):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    version="1.0">

    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="no" />

    <xsl:template match="file">
        <file>
            <xsl:for-each select="row">
                <xsl:if test="(position() >= 3 and position() &lt; 5)
                    or (position() >= 7 and position() &lt;= 8)">
                    <row>
                        <xsl:for-each select="cell">
                            <xsl:if test="position() = 1 or 
                                position() = 3">
                                <cell>
                                    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                                </cell>
                            </xsl:if>
                        </xsl:for-each>
                    </row>
                </xsl:if>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </file>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Essentially, you can use XPath position() function to select the ranges of row and cell elements that you want.