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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-11T20:34:05+00:00

Say I have the following XML: <a> <b>1</b> <b>2</b> <b>3</b> </a> … and require:

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Say I have the following XML:

<a>
  <b>1</b>
  <b>2</b>
  <b>3</b>
</a>

… and require:

Header
1
2
3

… but an xslt like:

<xsl:template match = "/" >  
  <xsl:variable name="headed" select="false()"/>
  <xsl:for-each select = "a/*" >
    <xsl:if test="not($headed)">
      <xsl:text>Header</xsl:text>
      <!-- 
        this next line causes a problem due to 
        the attempted reassignment of $headed
      -->
      <xsl:variable name="headed" select="true()"/>
    </xsl:if>
    <xsl:value-of select="." />
    <xsl:value-of select="'&#x0a;'"/>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

is invalid, can anybody recommend a brief and readable solution? and perhaps a good book to learn a functional mindset from 🙂

Cheers

Simon

—————————— addendum ————————–

After pondering the answers I’ve been presented with I realised I’ve lost some of the key components of the problem I was trying to tackle.

my data is more like:

<address>
  <line1>street</line1>
  <line2>town</line2>
  <line3>city</line3>
  <country>uk</country>
</address>

and my desired output is more like:

<table>
  <tr><td rowspan="6" valign="top">Address</td><td>street</td></tr>
  <tr><td>town</td></tr>
  <tr><td>city</td></tr>
  <tr><td>uk</td></tr>
</table>

any further help would be greatly appreciated.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The end result was more like:

            <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
        <xsl:stylesheet  version = "1.0"
        xmlns:xsl = "http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" >

          <xsl:template match="/a">
            <html><body><table>
                <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
            </table></body></html>
          </xsl:template>


          <xsl:template match="a/*">
            <xsl:if test="not(.='')">
              <TR>
                <xsl:if test="position()=1">
    <!--
                  <TD rowspan="6" valign="top">Address</TD>
                 improved based on Tomalak's suggestion
    -->
              <xsl:element name="TD">
                <xsl:attribute name="rowspan" >
    <!--
                  <cough />
                  <xsl:value-of select="count(*)"/>
    -->
                  <xsl:value-of select="count(*[not(.='')]"/>
                </xsl:attribute>
                <xsl:attribute name="valign" >
                  <xsl:text>top</xsl:text>
                </xsl:attribute>
                <xsl:text>Address</xsl:text>
              </xsl:element>

                </xsl:if>
                <TD>
                  <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                </TD>
              </TR>
            </xsl:if>
          </xsl:template>
        </xsl:stylesheet>
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