Question

Suppose I have an XML file:

<document>
  <title>How the West was Won</title>
  <chapter>
    Lorem Ipsum Blah .....
  </chapter>
</document>

Is it possible to use XSLT or XSLFO or XSL to render the title like this:

How the West was Won
--------------------

Lorem Ipsum Blah .....

How would I generate the correct number of dashes on the line following the Title?

Answer 1

Try this:

  <xsl:template match="title">
  <xsl:value-of select="text()"/>
  <xsl:text>
  </xsl:text>
  <xsl:call-template name="Underline">
    <xsl:with-param name="length" select="string-length(text())"/>
  </xsl:call-template>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="Underline">
    <xsl:param name="length"/>
    <xsl:choose>
      <xsl:when test="$length > 0">-<xsl:call-template name="Underline"><xsl:with-param name="length" select="$length - 1"/></xsl:call-template></xsl:when>
    </xsl:choose>    
  </xsl:template>

Underline is a recursive template that outputs a given number of dashes.