Question

I’ve basically got an XML input structure like this:

...
<box type="rectangle" class="someOriginalClass">
    <background bgtype="solid" />
    <animation order="3" />
    ... children
</box>

and would like to transform it to

<div class="someOriginalClass rectangle solid animated order3">
    ...children
</div>

Note that neither background nor animation need to be there, and this is a reduced example, meaning that there could be more properties like these, with more attributes.
As well, animation and background are reused elsewhere.

My XSLT code so far is:

<xsl:template match="box">
    <div class="{@someOldClass} {@type}">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="./*" />
    </div>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="background">
    <xsl:attribute name="class">
      <xsl:value-of select="@bgtype"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="animation">
    <xsl:attribute name="class">
      animated order<xsl:value-of select="@order"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>

The problem with this code is that each template overrides the class attribute completely, dismissing already contained classes.

To solve this, I’ve tried:

a) rewriting old classes => value-of only gets input XML class (someOldClass)

<xsl:template match="animation">
    <xsl:attribute name="class">
      <xsl:value-of select="../@class"/>
      animated order<xsl:value-of select="@order"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>

b) instead passing changes between templates with params => only one time, one way

<xsl:template match="box">
    <div class="{@someOldClass} {@type}">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="./*">
            <xsl:with-param name="class" select="concat(@someOldClass,' ',@type)"/>
        </xml:apply-templates>
    </div>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="animation">
    <xsl:param name="class"/>
    <xsl:attribute name="class">
      <xsl:value-of select="$class"/>
      animated order<xsl:value-of select="@order"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>

You see, I’m lacking a solution that will work with any number of class updates, with minimal redundancy.
BTW, I’m an XSLT beginner, so maybe there’s some predestined feature that I’ve simply not yet come across.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I’ve used this before. I’m not sure what your XML looks like but this may help get you on the right path.

<xsl:template match="box">
<xsl:param name="boxType" />
<li>
    <xsl:variable name="boxClass">
        <xsl:value-of select="$boxType"/>
        <xsl:if test="@class1 = 1"> class1</xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="@class2 = 1"> class2</xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="@class3 = 1"> class3</xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="@class4 = 1"> class4</xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="@last = 1"> lnLast</xsl:if>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:attribute name="class">
        <xsl:value-of select="$boxClass"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
</li>
</xsl:template>