RE: [xsl] Weird behavior with attributes and >

["Nesbitt, David" <DNesbitt at gensys dot com>]

Mike,

> The CDATA sections are only a convenience for input so that you don't
> have to escape markup characters. It has exactly the same meaning as 
> if escaped the markup characters and didn't wrap it in the CDATA tags.
> 
> This would be more efficient for the processor:
> 
> <xsl:variable name="open.expression" select="'&lt;%= '"/>
> <xsl:variable name="open.expression" select="' &gt;'"/>
> 
> because it would create strings rather than result tree fragments.

Thanks!  This is a great explanation and I understand alot better what
is going on now.

> disable-output-escaping applies to the instructions that create text
> nodes, but if the instruction is creating the content template for
> xsl:attribute, the flag won't apply to the attribute node.
> 
> XSLT doesn't allow for attributes to have their escaping disabled, so
> vendors have implemented their own solutions to this 
> "problem". SAXON, for
> example, has a saxon:disable-output-escaping for 
> xsl:attribute elements.

Mike, this did the trick.  Thanks so much for taking the time to answer
my post.  I was really getting discouraged and was wondering if I was
going to be able to use XSLT after all.  Fortunately, I was already
using Saxon and now it is working perfectly!!!

> A pure XSLT solution would involve some very ugly, but not 
> impossible, 
> simulation of element start and end tags using text nodes 
> with disabled 
> output escaping.

I am glad I don't have to go through this!  Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Dave

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