XSL/XML Select and Option HTML tags

[Andy]

Hi, I'm trying to render tabular data in an HTML document using XSL to
transform XML data into an HTML table. Some of the tabular data
appears as droplists (implemented by the HTML Select and Option tags).
All the droplists have the same option entries that a user can choose
from.

Is there anyway to reuse a single "master" branch in the XML document
that contains all the option entries for all the select droplists in
the XSL document? As there can be hundreds of skills, it wouldn't be
practical to keep repeating the option data as childnodes for each
skill node in the XML document.

The style sheet looks like:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/skills">
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Skill</TD>
<TD>Expertise</TD>
</TR>

<xsl:apply-templates select="*">
</xsl:apply-templates>

</TABLE>
</xsl:template>

<!--END OF STYLE SHEET -->

<xsl:template name="list" match="skill">
<TR>
<TD><!-- skill name -->
<xsl:value-of select="current()" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
</TD>
<TD<!-- expertise droplist name -->
<SELECT>
<xsl:attribute name="ID"><xsl:value-of
select="concat('expertiseID_',position())"/></xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name="NAME"><xsl:value-of
select="concat('expertiseNAME_',position())"/></xsl:attribute>
<OPTION></OPTION>
</SELECT></TD></TR>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

[John Saunders]

"Andy" <an****@infotek-consulting.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@b28g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

Hi, I'm trying to render tabular data in an HTML document using XSL to
transform XML data into an HTML table. Some of the tabular data
appears as droplists (implemented by the HTML Select and Option tags).
All the droplists have the same option entries that a user can choose
from.

Is there anyway to reuse a single "master" branch in the XML document
that contains all the option entries for all the select droplists in
the XSL document? As there can be hundreds of skills, it wouldn't be
practical to keep repeating the option data as childnodes for each
skill node in the XML document.

Why not:

<root>
<skills>
<skill/>
<skill/>
</skills>
<table1><row/><row/></table1>
<table2><row/><row/></table2>
</root>

Alternatively, you can put the skills into a separate document, or into the
stylesheet itself, and reference it with the document() function.

John

[Martin Honnen]

Andy wrote:

I'm trying to render tabular data in an HTML document using XSL to
transform XML data into an HTML table. Some of the tabular data
appears as droplists (implemented by the HTML Select and Option tags).
All the droplists have the same option entries that a user can choose
from.

Is there anyway to reuse a single "master" branch in the XML document
that contains all the option entries for all the select droplists in
the XSL document?

There are ways, certainly, you can apply a template several times if
needed for the same input data, you can apply different modes on the
same input data.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Andy]

Hi John,

I looked into your suggestion for using the document() function, and
this was what I needed! But, instead of calling a seperate XML
document, I redirected the select to a branch in the primary XML
document that contained a list of tags to build the option list from:

I'm posting a condensed version of the code incase anyone else is
looking for how to do this. The code below results in an HTML table of
skills with select boxes to the right of each one:

OUTPUT

English [Fluent ]
French [Working Knowledge ]
Spanish [Weak ]
German [ ]
Italian [ ]
XML DOCUMENT

<root>
<skills>
<skill selstrength='1'>English</skill>
<skill selstrength='2'>French</skill>
<skill selstrength='3'>Spanish</skill>
<skill selstrength='0'>German</skill>
<skill selstrength='0'>Italian</skill>
</skills>
<optionlist>
<strength ID='0'></strength>
<strength ID='1'>Fluent</strength>
<strength ID='2'>Working Knowledge</strength>
<strength ID='3'>Weak</strength>
</optionlist>
<root>
XSLT STYLESHEET

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/"<!-- root node of xml document -->
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Skill</TD>
<TD>Expertise</TD>
</TR>
<xsl:apply-templates select="//skills/skill"<!-- for each skill in
the xml document -->
</xsl:apply-templates>
</TABLE>
</xsl:template>

<!--END OF STYLE SHEET -->
<!-- WRITE A LINE FOR A SINGLE SKILL -->
<xsl:template name="list" match="skill">
<xsl:variable name="selstrength" select="@selstrength"/>
<TR>
<TD><!-- SKILL NAME -->
<xsl:value-of select="current()" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
</TD>
<TD>

<!-- CREATE THE SELECT DROPBOX -->
<SELECT>
<xsl:attribute name="ID"><xsl:value-of
select="concat('SKILL_',position())"/></xsl:attribute>

<xsl:apply-templates select="//optionlist/strength"<!-- create the
options -->
<xsl:with-param name="selstrength" select="$selstrength"/>
</xsl:apply-templates>

</SELECT>

</TD></TR>
</xsl:template>

<!-- CREATE A PAIR OF OPTION TAGS -->
<xsl:template name="options" match="strength">
<xsl:param name="selstrength" />
<xsl:variable name="id" select="@ID"/>
<OPTION>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$selstrength=$id">
<xsl:attribute name="SELECTED">SELECTED</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:when>
</xsl:choose>
<xsl:value-of select="current()" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
</OPTION>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>