Question

In the below XSL every time the xsl:when gets satisfied I want to append as many <a> and </a> tags. But the data that needs to be populated inside the tags should be only once. I have shown the expected output at the end.

<xsl:param name="insert-file" as="document-node()" />
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:variable name="input">My text</xsl:variable> 
<xsl:variable name="Myxml" as="element()*"> 
    <xsl:call-template name="populateTag"> 
            <xsl:with-param name="nodeValue" select="$input"/> 
    </xsl:call-template> 
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:copy-of select="$Myxml"></xsl:copy-of>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="populateTag"> 
    <xsl:param name="nodeValue"/> 
    <xsl:for-each select="$insert-file/insert-data/data">
        <xsl:choose> 
            <xsl:when test="@index = 1">
                <a><xsl:value-of select="$nodeValue"></xsl:value-of></a> 
            </xsl:when>             
        </xsl:choose> 
    </xsl:for-each> 
</xsl:template>     

Current output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<a>My text</a>
<a>My text</a>
<a>My text</a>
<a>My text</a>

I want the template “populateTag” to return me the xml in the below format. How do i modify the template “populateTag” to achive the same.

Expected output from template “populateTag”:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<a><a><a><a>My text</a></a></a></a>

Please give your ideas.

Answer 1

For that to happen, you need some kind of recursion (to nest the a-elements).

Without trying, because I don’t have a sample XML document:

<xsl:param name="insert-file" as="document-node()" />
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:variable name="input">My text</xsl:variable> 
<xsl:variable name="Myxml" as="element()*"> 
    <xsl:call-template name="populateTag"> 
            <xsl:with-param name="nodeValue" select="$input"/> 
            <xsl:with-param name="position" select="1"/> 
    </xsl:call-template> 
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:copy-of select="$Myxml"></xsl:copy-of>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="populateTag"> 
    <xsl:param name="nodeValue"/> 
    <xsl:param name="position"/> 
    <xsl:variable name="total" select="count($insert-file/insert-data/data[@index = 1])" />
    <xsl:for-each select="$insert-file/insert-data/data[@index = 1]">
      <xsl:if test="position() = $position" >
          <xsl:choose> 
              <xsl:when test="position() = $total">
                  <a><xsl:value-of select="$nodeValue"></xsl:value-of></a>
              </xsl:when>             
              <xsl:otherwise>
                <a>    
                      <xsl:call-template name="populateTag"> 
                              <xsl:with-param name="nodeValue" select="$input"/> 
                              <xsl:with-param name="position" select="$position+1"/> 
                      </xsl:call-template> 
                </a>
              </xsl:otherwise>
          </xsl:choose> 
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each> 
</xsl:template>