Question

I have a variable $colors that is a string

<xsl:variable name="colors" select="'red,green,blue,'" />

I need a new variable, $colorElements that is a node-set

<color>red</color>
<color>green</color>
<color>blue</color>

(Is that right? Can a node-set have no root?)

$colorElements will never be output directly. I just need it as, effectively, a list variable.

XSLT 1.0 with no extensions other than node-set().

Answer 1

Use:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl">
  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:variable name="colors" select="'red,green,blue,'" />

  <xsl:template match="/">

    <xsl:variable name="colorElements">
      <xsl:call-template name="split">
        <xsl:with-param name="pText" select="$colors"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:variable>

    <xsl:for-each select="msxsl:node-set($colorElements)">
      <xsl:copy-of select="color"/>
    </xsl:for-each>

  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="split">
    <xsl:param name="pText"/>

    <xsl:variable name="separator">,</xsl:variable>

    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="string-length($pText) = 0"/>
      <xsl:when test="contains($pText, $separator)">
        <color>
          <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($pText, $separator)"/>
        </color>
        <xsl:call-template name="split">
          <xsl:with-param name="pText" select="substring-after($pText, $separator)"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:when>
      <xsl:otherwise>
        <color>
          <xsl:value-of select="$pText"/>
        </color>
      </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>