Question

Count nodes, return current node position

Asked by: numbers1to9

Hi!

It has been a while since I worked with XSLT, and now I have severe brain damage from switching back and forth working with JavaScript and PHP.

Anyhow, I need some help with XSLT/Xpath, if anyone has some time.

I need to get the current node number.

Let's say there is 5 nodes with the name sugarDaddy, I need to know which number I am currently at (when applying a template).

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2007-08-09 at 14:49:55ID22753371
Tags

node

,

count

,

position

,

xpath

,

xslt

Topics

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)

,

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
9

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Xpath and nodes
    Is it possible to XPath to a location, then Insert/Delete nodes at that point. All the examples I have seen, seem to be absolute node select, then you can Insert/Delete node. Thanks Simon
  2. Understanding xslt and xpath in a specific example
    I have the following xslt file that will sort my xml file based on table name. The xslt was coded with significant help from daniel_balla. It works, but I don't understand it very well as I have not used xslt nor xpath before - other than glancing at it briefly. I would li...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: GertonePosted on 2007-08-09 at 14:55:53ID: 19666347

use xsl:number

    <xsl:template match="sugarDaddy">
        <xsl:number count="sugarDaddy" level="any" />
    </xsl:template>

cheers

Geert

 

by: numbers1to9Posted on 2007-08-09 at 15:06:16ID: 19666414

Thanks for your quick reply Geert.

I am currently doing that... Well, something like that...

<xsl:number level="any" count="/root//$x" />

Where X is the name of the node (the number function is in a template).

Any ideas?

 

by: numbers1to9Posted on 2007-08-09 at 16:08:22ID: 19666715

I've been testing some things and it seems that I have to give a little bit more info...

This is exactly what I am trying to do:

<xsl:call-template name="template">
    <xsl:with-param name="node" select="/root/node1/node2/x"/>
    <xsl:with-param name="count" select="/root//x"/>
</xsl:call-template>

<xsl:template name="template">
  <xsl:for-each select="$node">
    <xsl:number level="any" count="$count" />
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

The above doesn't seem to work. If I however remove the "$count" and set the count value to "/root//x" things seem to go forwards...

I need some fresh ideas on how to solve this, it seems...

 

by: numbers1to9Posted on 2007-08-09 at 17:42:42ID: 19667044

I do not get it, can you not pass a variable in the @count ? Why? God why?...

 

by: numbers1to9Posted on 2007-08-09 at 19:35:58ID: 19667375

Well, I took care of the problem from a different angle... I think...

I will however leave this question open ('cause I ain't got m'self an answer).

Anyway, anyone that could answer the question:

"Why you can't pass a variable through xsl:number/count()"

Got themselves a 500 points * A. Couldn't be simpler could it?

 

by: GertonePosted on 2007-08-10 at 00:08:09ID: 19668142

Hi numbers1to9,

sorry for leaving you on this, I went to bed not so long after my initial post (I am on CET, 1AM ain't that bad :-)

You can't simply pass nodes or variables to xsl:number,
cause xsl:number counts nodes at the context node
so your observation is right that you need to switch to the context in the template to get the count right
<xsl:template name="template">
  <xsl:for-each select="$node">
...
Now (...) is in the context of $node and does get the count right

The other problem you are experiencing has nothing to do with xsl:number but is a more general issue
xsl:number/@count takes an XPath expression, not a string value
In XSLT, there is no such thing as dynamically evaluated XPaths
If you pass an XPath, like this
 <xsl:with-param name="count" select="/root//x"/>
not the string "/root//x" is passed but the nodeset of all 'x' nodes found at any depth below the node 'root' that is a child of the current context will be passed
If you wanted to pass the XPath expression a a string (so avoid early evaluation), you need to do this (add single quotes)
 <xsl:with-param name="count" select="'/root//x'"/>
but that will not help you, since the string will not be evaluated as a dynamic XPath in the template

There are ways around this,
you could compare the name of an element (which is a string) to the variable string in a predicate in an XPath
(that is as close as dynamic XPaths as you will ever get)
Here is an example (note that I pass the element name as a string with single quotes)
This technique will not work if you wanted root//x instead of x.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:call-template name="template">
            <xsl:with-param name="node" select="/root/node1/node2/x"/>
            <xsl:with-param name="count" select="'x'"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template name="template">
        <xsl:param name="node"/>
        <xsl:param name="count"/>
        <xsl:for-each select="$node">
            <xsl:number level="any" count="*[name() = $count]" />
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:template>
   
</xsl:stylesheet>

cheers

Geert

 

by: numbers1to9Posted on 2007-08-10 at 09:27:55ID: 19671336

While I must say that sleep is for the week, you sure are great!

Thanks for your explanation and your example. I used a different method from the one you gave; magic--that's right magic.

I was so tired last night so I just moved around stuff until it worked. Actually I just "for-each"-ed the node in question and used simple number@level=any to get the position, yeah I know, isn't it funny? -- one could have nothing less than a love/hate relation to the X-family.

But I have saved your example as a fall-back if [when] my method bits the dust. I was looking for a Xpath expression similar the one you gave (count="*[name() = $count]") I just couldn't remember enough of Xpath to do that (getElementById in PHP/JavaScript [DOM] sure makes you lazy ;))

Cheers, alcohol and bloody broken glass!

 

by: GertonePosted on 2007-08-10 at 09:32:02ID: 19671373

welcome

 

by: rogerperkinsPosted on 2009-10-20 at 09:51:26ID: 25616036

position()

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...