Question

I have this situation:

<root>
 //first block other tags

 <data>something</data> //first
 <data>something</data>
 <data>something</data>
 ...others <data/>
 <data>something</data> //last

 //follows second block other tags
</root>

I need to apply-templates to all the tags before the first <data/> and apply-templates to all the other tags following last <data/>.

Have you any idea how to select this subsets?

Answer 1

To select all elements before the first data element, do this

<xsl:apply-templates select="data[1]/preceding-sibling::*" />

To select all elements after the last data element, do this

<xsl:apply-templates select="data[last()]/following-sibling::*" />

Or, do select them both at the same time….

<xsl:apply-templates select="data[1]/preceding-sibling::*|data[last()]/following-sibling::*" />

This assumes you are positioned on the root element, and that there is at least one data element present though.