Question

So if I have xml that looks like the below and I am in the node “FULLTIME” how can I tell that I am in EMPLOYEE as opposed to contractor? So is there a function I can use that will return something like “ROOT/PERSON/EMPLOYEE” showing me that from the FULLTIME Node the parent nodes are ROOT, PERSON, and EMPLOYEE? I can’t seem to find anything that will provide that. I am new to xslt so my ignorance is probably a big part of me not being able to find what I want.

<ROOT>
  <PERSON>
    <EMPLOYEE>
      <FULLTIME>
        <NAME>Mike</NAME>
        <LAST_NAME>Thompson</LAST_NAME>
        <EMPLOYEE_ID>1</EMPLOYEE_ID>
      </FULLTIME>
      <PARTTIME />
    </EMPLOYEE>
    <CONTRACTOR>
      <FULLTIME>
        <NAME>Mike</NAME>
        <LAST_NAME>Olsen</LAST_NAME>
        <EMPLOYEE_ID>2</EMPLOYEE_ID>
      </FULLTIME>
      <PARTTIME />
    </CONTRACTOR>
  </PERSON>
</ROOT>

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

–S

Answer 1

The ancestor axis can be used to ‘look up’ through the tree. It’s not entirely clear what you want to do, but you can test if EMPLOYEE is your ancestor:

<xsl:if test="ancestor::EMPLOYEE" >
   ...
</xsl:if>