Question

I’m hoping to sort a table generated by a for-each. The data which determins the sort is not contained within the for-each node set, but is instead contained within . There is a common_id between the node set and the node set. I’ve tried assigning the common_id to a local variable within the for-each but the sort cannot see it. Is there a way to achieve this? Some examples below.

Example XML

<root>
  <seq>
    <common_id>B1U3</common_id>
    <seq_data>1</seq_data>
  </seq>
  <seq>
    <common_id>R3D</common_id>
    <seq_data>3</seq_data>
  </seq>
  <seq>
    <common_id>Y3110W</common_id>
    <seq_data>2</seq_data>
  </seq>

  <detail>
    <common_id>Y3110W</common_id>
    <other_data>spame</other_data>
  </detail>
  <detail>
    <common_id>B1U3</common_id>
    <other_data>spamo</other_data>
  </detail>
  <detail>
    <common_id>R3D</common_id>
    <other_data>spama</other_data>
  </detail>
</root>

Required Output

____________________________    
¦Common Id      ¦Other Data¦
¦---------------¦----------¦
¦B1U3           ¦spama     ¦
¦Y3110W         ¦spame     ¦
¦R3d            ¦spamo     ¦
¦_______________¦__________¦

Current XSLT

<xsl:template match="/">
  <table>
    <tr>
        <td>Common ID</td>
        <td>Other Data</td>
    </tr>
    <xsl:for-each select="detail">
      <xsl:variable name="local_id" select="common_id"/>
      <xsl:sort select="../seq[common_id = $local_id]/seq_data"/>
        <tr>
          <td><xsl:value-of select="common_id"/></td>
          <td><xsl:value-of select="other_data"/></td>
        </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </table>
</xsl:template>

Answer 1

Does it work if you use the current() function instead of the variable? Also you probably want to make the sort numeric rather than lexicographic:

<xsl:sort select="../seq[common_id = current()/common_id]/seq_data"
          data-type="number"/>