Re: [xsl] Parametrized xsl:sort

[Peter Davis <pdavis152 at attbi dot com>]

On Thursday 29 August 2002 19:15, Neale Morison wrote:
> To be specific, I want the result of:
>         <xsl:sort select="$sortkey" order="descending"/>

Since a normal variable doesn't change, the sort will have no effect (but I'm 
sure you already figured this out).

> with parameter sortkey:
>         <xsl:with-param name="sortkey" select="@name"/>

If you pass select="@name", it will evaluate "@name" in the context of the 
with-param, not in the sort.  So you probably want to change this to:

<xsl:with-param name="sortkey" select="'@name'"/>

which will pass the string '@name' to be evaluated later.

> to be equivalent to:
>         <xsl:sort select="@name" order="descending"/>

To evaluate the string, you need to use some kind of extension function.  Look 
in the documentation of whatever processor you use; it will probably look 
like:

<xsl:sort order="descending" select="xxx:evaluate($sortkey)"/>

The 'xxx' will be associated with an extension namespace specific to your 
processor.  The evaluate() function will take the string $sortkey and 
evaluate it as an XPath expression.

-- 
Peter Davis

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