RE: [xsl] filtering descendent text nodes

["Michael Kay" <michael dot h dot kay at ntlworld dot com>]

> i am new to xslt. Given below is the files i am using.
>
> <?xml version="1.0" ?>
> <custdet>
> <customer>
> 	<name>
> 	<firstname>FIRST1</firstname>
> 	<secondname>NAME1
> 		<secondname1>SECONDNAME1</secondname1>
> 	</secondname>
> 	</name>
> </customer>
> </custdet>
>
> -------------------
> I AM TRYING TO FILTER OUT ALL DESCENDENT TEXT NODES
> VALUES (I.E. FIRST1,NAME1,SECONDNAME1) AND AM USING
> THE FOLLOWING XSL FOR THAT.

First point: every node except the root node is a descendant of something.
The root node is the parent of the <custdet> element (think of it as
representing the document itself). Certainly every text node is a descendant
of something. So filtering out all the descendant text nodes is the same as
filtering out all the text nodes.
> -------------------
>
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet
> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
> version="1.0">
> 	<xsl:template match="/">
> 		<xsl:apply-templates  />
> 	</xsl:template>
> 	<xsl:template match="*">
> 		<xsl:apply-templates/>
> 	</xsl:template>
> 	<xsl:template match="text()">
> 			<xsl:apply-templates/>
> 	</xsl:template>

This last rule is rather peculiar. You are saying, when a text node is
encountered, apply templates to its children. But text nodes don't have
children. So your template rule is equivalent to <xsl:template
match="text()"/> - which is fine if that's what you want to do, it means
that when a text node is encountered, you output nothing.

> <!-- -->
> <xsl:template match="customer//node()">
> First Name :
> <b><i>
> <font color="red">
> <xsl:value-of select="." />
> <br/>
> </font>
> </i></b>
>
> </xsl:template>

This rule has a higher precedence than the rules above, so it will be chosen
in preference when processing any node (which may be an element node or text
node) that is a descendant of the <customer> element. So your <xsl:template
match="*"/> rule will be used to process the customer element itself. This
rule calls <xsl:apply-templates/> to process the children of the customer
element. Apart from whitespace-only text nodes, there is only one child of
<customer>, the <name> element. So the customer//node() rules is invoked to
process the <name> element, and also to process the whitespace-only text
nodes that precede and follow the <name> element.

For each of these three nodes, the template outputs "First name:" followed
by the string-value of the node, together with some HTML markup. For the
whitespace text nodes, the string-value of the node is whitespace. For the
<name> element, it is the concatenation of all the text contained within the
<name> element (including whitespace), without any tags.

Your example output shows five lines. I think your XML document must have
contained an extra element after the <name> element, which you haven't shown
us. Also, I don't think you've shown us the (HTML) output of the
transformation, you've shown us the way this HTML is rendered by the
browser.

The customer//node() template rule doesn't do an <xsl:apply-templates/>, so
the children of the <name> element are never processed.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@ntlworld.com
work: Michael.Kay@softwareag.com

> <!---->
> </xsl:stylesheet>
>
>
> THE expected result is three lines with "FIRST NAME:"
> prefix and the corresponding text value attached. The
> output i am getting is as follows
>
>
> First Name :
> First Name : FIRST1 NAME1 SECONDNAME1
> First Name :
> First Name : 20one1
> First Name
>
> Could somebody explain what actually is happening and
> also some light on the difference between child nodes
> and descendent nodes.
>
> Thanks
> Aseef.J
>
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