Question

xml:

<mode>1</mode>
<mode>2</mode>
<mode>3</mode>
<mode>4</mode>
<mode>5</mode>
<mode>6</mode>
<mode>7</mode>
<mode>8</mode>
<mode>9</mode>
<mode>10</mode>
<mode>11</mode>
<mode>12</mode>

i need to separate it on parts (for ex. on 4):

xslt:

<xsl:variable name="vNodes" select="mode"/>
<xsl:variable name="vNumParts" select="4"/>
<xsl:variable name="vNumCols" select="ceiling(count($vNodes) div $vNumParts)"/>
<xsl:for-each select="$vNodes[position() mod $vNumCols = 1]">
    <xsl:variable name="vCurPos" select="(position()-1)*$vNumCols +1"/>
    <ul>
        <xsl:for-each select="$vNodes[position() >= $vCurPos and not(position() > $vCurPos + $vNumCols -1)]">
            <li><xsl:value-of select="."/></li>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </ul>
</xsl:for-each>

this code is written by Dimitre Novatchev – great coder))

but for the number of nodes less then number of parts (for ex. i have 2 modes) this code does not work – it outputs nothing.

How it upgrade for that case (without choose construction)?

Answer 1

Although the problem is incorrectly defined if the number of nodes is smaller than the number of parts, here is a transformation that I guess produces the output the OP most probably wants (Why didn’t he just specify this behavior???):

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>

 <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
   <xsl:copy>
     <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
   </xsl:copy>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="/t">
  <t>
    <xsl:variable name="vNodes" select="mode"/>
    <xsl:variable name="vNumParts" select="4"/>
    <xsl:variable name="vNumCols" select="ceiling(count($vNodes) div $vNumParts)"/>

    <xsl:variable name="vrealNum">
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$vNumCols >1">
         <xsl:value-of select="$vNumCols"/>
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:value-of select="count($vNodes)"/>
        </xsl:otherwise>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:variable>
    <xsl:for-each select="$vNodes[position() mod $vrealNum = 1]">
        <xsl:variable name="vCurPos" select="(position()-1)*$vrealNum +1"/>
        <ul>
            <xsl:for-each select="$vNodes[position() >= $vCurPos and not(position() > $vCurPos + $vrealNum -1)]">
                <li><xsl:value-of select="."/></li>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </ul>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </t>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when this transformation is applied on the following XML document (he can’t even provide a well-formed XML document!):

<t>
    <mode>1</mode>
    <mode>2</mode>
</t>

the output is what I guess the OP wanted…

<t>
    <ul>
        <li>1</li>
        <li>2</li>
    </ul>
</t>