Question

I have the following template:

<xsl:template match="footnote">
    <xsl:variable name = "string">
        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:variable name = "bool">
        <xsl:if test="$string = preceding-sibling::node()/$string">
            <xsl:text>false</xsl:test>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:if test="$bool != 'false'">
        <!-- DO STUFF -->
    </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

I’m trying to check the $string variable of the current node and check it against all previous footnote nodes to see if they have the same $string variable. If it doesn’t match up with any of the preceding siblings then it should do stuff, otherwise it should do nothing.

With the code I have, the test “$string = preceding-sibling::node()/$string” always evaluates to true, even when no footnote nodes have been created yet.

Can anyone help me out? I’m having a hard time creating the expression to compare against the variable in all of the previous siblings.

EDIT: Sample XML:

<xml>
<footnote>Footnote 1</footnote>
<footnote>Footnote 2</footnote>
<footnote>Footnote 1</footnote>
<footnote>Footnote 1</footnote>
<footnore>Footnote 3</footenote>
</xml>

I’m trying to transform that into:

<xml>
<footnote>Footnote 1</footnote>
<footnote>Footnote 2</footnote>
<footnote>Footnore 3</footnore>
</xml

Answer 1

Well. posting Your output XML made it more clear! there you go with solution:

Sample XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <footnote>Matching</footnote>
  <footnote>Example1</footnote>
  <footnote>Matching</footnote>
  <footnote>Example2</footnote>
  <footnote>Example3</footnote>
</root>

And XSL:

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

    <xsl:template match="@* | node()">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="footnote[.=preceding-sibling::footnote/.]"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xml>
  <footnote>Matching</footnote>
  <footnote>Example1</footnote>
  <footnote>Example2</footnote>
  <footnote>Example3</footnote>
</xml>