Question

I’m trying to take a xml document and transform to a standard html list with nesting:

Sample

<orgtree>
  <Node nodeID="1363" nodeDescription="Some User" nodeNote="Some Note" X="5260" Y="20">
    <Node nodeID="1373" nodeDescription="Some Child User" nodeNote="More">
      <Node nodeID="1374" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
      <Node nodeID="1375" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
      <Node nodeID="1376" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
      <Node nodeID="1377" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
    </Node>
    <Node nodeID="1474" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
    <Node nodeID="1475" nodeDescription="Another Child" nodeNote="More"/>
  </Node>
</ogtree>

I’d Like it to appear as:

<ul>
  <li>Some User<br/>SomeNote
    <ul>
      <li>Some Child User<br/>More
        <ul>
          <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
          <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
          <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
          <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
        </ul>
      <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
      <li>Another Child<br/>More</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Note: The Tree Can go on nesting forever, and each node can have multiple children. I’d like to display the ul li the same way and I am as of yet unable to do this…Can someone give me a better way to transform? Each Node also have a graphical position for page viewing an image based on the node id. (Though, I could care about this portion).

Answer 1

This is a basic setup for a XSLT you would need.

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

  <xsl:template match="orgtree">
    <ul>
      <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </ul>    
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="Node">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="@nodeDescription"/>
    </li>
    <xsl:if test="Node">
      <ul>
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
      </ul>
    </xsl:if>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

It has a template that matches any Node element and applies this template for any of its children incase it has any test="Node". This technique is known as recursion

When learning XSLT I can recommend the MSDN library for basic and advanced topics and w3schools for basics.