Question

If have a big ‘xsl:choose’ chunk in which I need to set a number of defined sets of attributes on different elements.

I really do not like to repeat the definition of sets of attributes inside every branch of the ‘choose’.
So I would like to work with a variable that contains those attributes.
A lot easier to maintain and less room for error…

So far I have not been able to call the attribute node out?
I thought they are just a node-set, so copy-of would do the trick.
But that gives me nothing on output.
Is this because attribute nodes are not really children?
But XSLT 1.O does not allow me to address them directly…<xsl:copy-of select="$attributes_body/@*/> returns an error

Here is the stylesheet fragment (reduced from original)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="list">
  <xsl:for-each select="figure">
  <xsl:variable name="attributes_body">
     <xsl:attribute name="chapter"><xsl:value-of select="@chapter"/></xsl:attribute>
     <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of select="@id"/></xsl:attribute>
   </xsl:variable>
   <xsl:variable name="attributes_other">
      <xsl:attribute name="chapter"><xsl:value-of select="@book"/></xsl:attribute>
      <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of select="@id"/></xsl:attribute>
   </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:choose>
       <xsl:when test="ancestor::body">
          <xsl:element name="entry">
            <xsl:copy-of select="$attributes_body"/>
            <xsl:text>Body fig</xsl:text>
          </xsl:element>
       </xsl:when>
       <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:element name="entry">
            <xsl:copy-of select="$attributes_other"/>
            <xsl:text>other fig</xsl:text>
          </xsl:element>
       </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>         
  </xsl:for-each>    
</xsl:template>

If this can not be done in XLST 1.0 would 2.0 be able to do this?

Answer 1

<xsl:variable name="attributes_body"> 
     <xsl:attribute name="chapter"><xsl:value-of select="@chapter"/></xsl:attribute> 
     <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of select="@id"/></xsl:attribute> 
 </xsl:variable>

You need to select the wanted attributes — not to copy their contents in the body of the variable.

Remember: Whenever possible, try always to specify an XPath expression in the select attribute of xsl:variable — avoid copying content in its body.

Solution:

Just use:

<xsl:variable name="attributes_body" select="@chapter | @id"> 

Here is a complete example:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
     xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
     <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>

     <xsl:template match="x/a">
      <xsl:variable name="vAttribs" select="@m | @n"/>

      <newEntry>
        <xsl:copy-of select="$vAttribs"/>
        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </newEntry>
     </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on this:

<x>
 <a m="1" n="2" p="3">zzz</a>
</x>

produces:

 <newEntry m="1" n="2">zzz</newEntry>