Maintaining a Great-than Character in an Attribute Value

[gooooglegroups]

I want to transform the following xml file
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="if 3 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

into this xml file
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="3 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

i.e. I want to remove the "if" character from the start of the value of
the attribute "attrib"

I am using the style sheet...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:styleshe et xmlns:xsl="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">
<xsl:template match="node( ) | @*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node( )"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="@attrib[starts-with(., 'if ')]">
<xsl:attribut e name="attrib">
<xsl:value-of select="substri ng-after(., 'if ')"/>
</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

with "Xalan Version Xalan Java 2.4.1", but I get the following output
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="3 &gt; 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 &gt; 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

where the greater-than character is changed to &gt; .

I need to have the single character in the output also.

Is there any way in XSLT of keeping the greater-than and less-than
characters and < in attribute values when you transform instead of
having &gt; and &lt; ?

If there is no way to achieve this in XSLT, what would be the
recommended method for achieving this?

Any help\pointers greatly appreciated,

Regards,

Metric

[Martin Honnen]

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

with "Xalan Version Xalan Java 2.4.1", but I get the following output

<b attrib="3 &gt; 2">

where the greater-than character is changed to &gt; .

I need to have the single character in the output also.

Why, any XML parser/tool should properly unescape the &gt; entity
reference as the '>' character?

If you want '>' then I guess you need to write your own serializer to
serialize the result tree of the XSLT transformation.
--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Andy Dingley]

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

where the greater-than character is changed to &gt; .
I need to have the single character in the output also.

Then stop needing that.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/#syntax
The character ">" MAY be encoded as &gt; where you're encountering it.
So it's an error if your XML-consuming application doesn't recognise
that. You should concentrate on fixing that, not working around its
errors. Otherwise these errors build up and you build a non-robust
system.

[Joe Kesselman]

Is there any way in XSLT of keeping the greater-than and less-than

characters and < in attribute values when you transform instead of
having &gt; and &lt; ?

Not in XSLT by itself, no. Write your own serializer, or (simpler) write
a text-processing-based postprocessor.

Better answer: Don't fix what ain't broke. If your problem is that some
downstream tool cares about this difference, fix that tool.

--
() ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Joe Kesselman
/\ Stamp out HTML e-mail! | System architexture and kinetic poetry

[gooooglegroups]

Thanks for the replies.

I need to keep the great-than character, <, in the attribute value of
the original XML file. So it looks like I will have to use another
approach other than, or in addition to, XSLT.

Thanks.

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I want to transform the following xml file
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="if 3 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

into this xml file
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="3 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

i.e. I want to remove the "if" character from the start of the value of
the attribute "attrib"

I am using the style sheet...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:styleshe et xmlns:xsl="http ://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">
<xsl:template match="node( ) | @*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node( )"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="@attrib[starts-with(., 'if ')]">
<xsl:attribut e name="attrib">
<xsl:value-of select="substri ng-after(., 'if ')"/>
</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

with "Xalan Version Xalan Java 2.4.1", but I get the following output
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<a>
<b attrib="3 &gt; 2">
</b>

<b attrib="3 &gt; 1">
</b>
</a>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

where the greater-than character is changed to &gt; .

I need to have the single character in the output also.

Is there any way in XSLT of keeping the greater-than and less-than
characters and < in attribute values when you transform instead of
having &gt; and &lt; ?

If there is no way to achieve this in XSLT, what would be the
recommended method for achieving this?

Any help\pointers greatly appreciated,

Regards,

Metric

[Joseph Kesselman]

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I need to keep the great-than character, <, in the attribute value of
the original XML file.

I still say that the right fix is to undo that requirement. Your milage
may vary.

--
Joe Kesselman / Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden

[Richard Tobin]

In article <11************ **********@74g2 000cwt.googlegr oups.com>,
<go************ @yahoo.co.ukwro te:

>I need to keep the great-than character, <, in the attribute value of
the original XML file.

(You mean presumably.)

You need to explain *why* you have to keep it. People aren't going to
spend much time helping you to do something they think is pointless.

-- Richard

[Andy Dingley]

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I need to keep the great-than character, <, in the attribute value of
the original XML file.

Less than or greater than ? The permitted use of each character is
different in XML. A greater than ">" _MAY_ be replaced by the entity
reference, is acceptable as a character, and must always be parseable
by "downstream " tools whether it appears as a character or an entity
reference.

A less than character "<" is right out. That's just not well-formed if
used there. Verboten.
You can still keep XSLT if you produce the output as a DOM and
serialize it to a file yourself. So long as you can guarantee you'll
avoid encoding issues, namespaces and <![CDATA[ sections then it's not
hard to DIY it.

[gooooglegroups]

Andy Dingley wrote:

You can still keep XSLT if you produce the output as a DOM and
serialize it to a file yourself. So long as you can guarantee you'll
avoid encoding issues, namespaces and <![CDATA[ sections then it's not
hard to DIY it.

I have both less-than and greater-than characters in the attribute
value of the input file. I need these less-than and greater-than
characters in the output file also.

Will this work even with a less-than character?

[Andy Dingley]

go************@ yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Will this work even with a less-than character?

How should I know? That's simply not XML. You do that, you're out on
your own.