Question

I am using Umbraco and having some trouble with XSLT.

I have the following structure:

root
   nodeA
      nodeB
      nodeB
      nodeB
   nodeC
      nodeA
         nodeB
         nodeB
         nodeB

I want to be able to get nodeB from nodeA under root or from nodeA under nodeC.

I currently use the following:

 <xsl:param name="currentPage"/>
    <xsl:variable name="siteRoot" select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::*/nodeC" />
<xsl:template match="/">

<!-- start writing XSLT -->
  <xsl:for-each select="$siteRoot/ancestor-or-self::*/nodeA/nodeB">
  <xsl:if test="string(umbracoNaviHide) != '1'">  
  <li style="background-image: none;">
      <xsl:if test="position() = last()">
        <xsl:attribute name="class">no-border</xsl:attribute>
      </xsl:if>
            <a>
              <xsl:attribute name="href">
                <xsl:value-of select="umbraco.library:NiceUrl(current()/@id)"/>
              </xsl:attribute>
              <xsl:attribute name="style">
                text-decoration: none;
              </xsl:attribute>
              <xsl:value-of select="./Name" /></a></li>
  </xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

Answer 1

<xsl:param name="currentPage"/> 
    <xsl:variable name="siteRoot" select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::*/nodeC" /> 
.  .  .  
  <xsl:for-each select="$siteRoot/ancestor-or-self::*/nodeA/nodeB">

You must read something on XPAth and learn the meaning of the different axes.

You actually want quite the opposite of this code:

  <xsl:param name="currentPage"/> 
      <xsl:variable name="siteRoot" select="$currentPage/descendant-or-self::nodeC[1]" /> 
  .  .  .  
    <xsl:for-each select="$siteRoot/nodeA/nodeB">

Or, better as a single XPath expression:

$currentPage/*/nodeC[1]/nodeA/nodeB

Note: Whenever possible, avoid using the XPath descendant:: or the descendant-or-self:: axes or the // pseudo-operator — they result in significant inefficiencies (slow execution) and // has anomalous and counter-intuitive behavior when used together with the [] operator.