Question

My XML is

<row>
  <entry>1.</entry>
  <entry>foo</entry>
  <entry>morefoo</entry>
</row>
<row>
  <entry>2.</entry>
  <entry>2foo</entry>
  <entry>2morefoo</entry>
</row>

using XSLT, i’m trying to represent this information in a html table, and i want to have a Serial no. column.

How do i go about selecting the value of only the first ‘entry’ tag?

Answer 1

In your XSLT you should have something like this:

<!-- matches the root (not specified in your post) -->
<xsl:template match="/">
   <!-- at root level, make your table -->
   <table>
     <thead>.... </thead>
     <tbody>
       <!-- push the rows through, make sure the path is correct -->
       <xsl:apply-templates select="path/to/row" />
     </tbody>
   </table>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="row">
   <!-- create the rows -->
   <tr>
     <!-- process first entry only, as you requested (why?) -->
     <xsl:apply-templates select="entry[1]" mode="first"/>
     <!-- process other entries -->
     <xsl:apply-templates select="entry[position() > 1]" mode="other"/>
   </tr>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="entry" mode="first">
   <!-- maybe you want the first cell to be treated specially, i.e. as row header -->
   <th><xsl:value-of select="."/></th>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="entry" mode="other">
   <!-- the other cells -->
   <td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
</xsl:template>

Note: the code above is not tested, use it as a template for your own real code and data.

Output would be something like the following:

<table>
  <thead>....</thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <th>1.</th>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>morefoo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th>2.</th>
      <td>2foo</td>
      <td>2morefoo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>....
  </tbody>
</table>