Question

I am using a recursive template that searches for some specific elements like this:

<xsl:template name="GetProdDependency">
    <xsl:param name="TechProd"></xsl:param>
    <xsl:param name="BeatenPath"></xsl:param>
    <xsl:variable name="TechProdArch" select="$TechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='technology_product_architecture']/pro:value"></xsl:variable>
    <xsl:variable name="TechProdArchNode" select="/node()/pro:simple_instance[pro:name=$TechProdArch]"></xsl:variable>
    <xsl:variable name="TechProdCompList" select="$TechProdArchNode/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='contained_techProd_components']/pro:value"/>
    <xsl:for-each select="$TechProdCompList">
        <xsl:variable name="TechProdAsRole" select="/node()/pro:simple_instance[pro:name=current()]/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='technology_product_as_role']/pro:value"/>
        <xsl:variable name="TechProdRole" select="/node()/pro:simple_instance[pro:name=$TechProdAsRole]/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='role_for_technology_provider']/pro:value"/>
        <xsl:variable name="DepTechProd" select="/node()/pro:simple_instance[pro:name=$TechProdRole]"/>
        <!-- Check for beaten Path -->
        <!-- if $DepTechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value in BeatenPath -->
        <xsl:if test="not($BeatenPath[string(.)=string($DepTechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value)])"> 
            <!-- Do the recursion here! -->
            <!--<xsl:value-of select="$DepTechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value"/> (type: <xsl:value-of select="$DepTechProd/pro:type"/> and Class: <xsl:value-of select="$DepTechProd/pro:name"/>)-->
            <!--<xsl:value-of select="$DepTechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value"/>-->
            <xsl:value-of select="$DepTechProd"/>
            <xsl:call-template name="GetProdDependency">
                <xsl:with-param name="TechProd" select="$DepTechProd"></xsl:with-param>
                <xsl:with-param name="BeatenPath" select="$TechProd|$DepTechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value"></xsl:with-param>
                <xsl:with-param name="Rev" select="$Rev + 1"></xsl:with-param>
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template> 

This is working fine in the searching etc.

But when I get the result in the original caller, I was expecting to get a list of nodes from the calling.

I call it like:

<xsl:variable name="DelPlist">
<xsl:call-template name="GetProdDependency">
    <xsl:with-param name="TechProd" select="$TechProd"></xsl:with-param>
    <xsl:with-param name="BeatenPath" select="$TechProd/pro:own_slot_value[pro:slot_reference='name']/pro:value"></xsl:with-param>
    <xsl:with-param name="Rev" select="1"></xsl:with-param>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:variable>

And I was expecting to get a list of nodes that I can iterate through with <xsl:for-each>. But If I check for the count($DelPlist), I get 1 as result and I can not iterate.

Can somebody help?

Answer 1

You must specify the type of the result of the template in its as attribute.

If unspecified, the type is document-node() and then in order to iterate through the result, you need to get the children of the result.

Solution: Specify the return type of the template with an as attribute.

Here is a complete example:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>

 <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:variable name="vNodes" as="element()*">
      <xsl:call-template name="genNodes"/>
     </xsl:variable>

     <xsl:for-each select="$vNodes">
      <xsl:value-of select="concat('&#xA;', position(), ': ')"/>
      <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
     </xsl:for-each>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template name="genNodes" as="element()*">
  <a/>
  <b/>
  <c/>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when this transformation is applied on any XML document (not used), the wanted, correct result is produced:

1: <a/>
2: <b/>
3: <c/>