Re: possible to mimic while-like behavior?

[David Carlisle <davidc at nag dot co dot uk>]

> Now imagine that when the conditions are such that <xsl:otherwise> is
> matched, one wants to break out of the <xsl:for-each>.

It is hard to imagine that because the template instantiated for
each node selected by the xsl:for-each has no side effects and so
any test that means that you do not want to evaluate the template
on some node could have been done before the xsl:for-each.

You only need select the nodes that you want, you don't need to select
all of the nodes and then try to `break' the loop.

It is best to think of xsl:for-each evaluating the template on all the
nodes _at the same time_. Some xslt engines may in fact evaluate them 
one at a time, in document order, but they are not obliged to do that.

You can of course implement a while loop using a recursive named
template rather than xsl:for-each.  

David


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