asked on

Write a variable number of sort selects?

Trying to sort a list with a custom character-by-character sort.

Sample input:
<items>
<item>abc</item>
<item>a!c</item>
<item>a2c</item>
</items>

Desired output is sorted by letter, then number, then non-alphanumeric (exclamation mark, spaces etc). For each character.

The xsl below, with 3 sort selects per character, works. But it's ugly code, and to process sorting of unknown input I'd need to anticipate potential string-length of up to at least 50 characters....

I was hoping there'd be a way to iterate from $iterator to $length_second_longest_string, writing 3 sort selects for each character.
But I can't see how...

<xsl:variable name="alphabet" select="'abcdefghijklmnipqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'" />
<xsl:variable name="numberic" select="'012345679'" />
<xsl:variable name="alphanumeric" select="concat($alphabet, $numberic)" />
<xsl:variable name="iterator" select="1" />
<xsl:variable name="length_second_longest_string">
      <xsl:for-each select="//item">
            <xsl:sort select="string-length(.)" order="descending" data-type="number" />
            <xsl:if test="position() = 2">
                  <xsl:value-of select="string-length(.)"/>
            </xsl:if>
      </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:for-each select="//item">
            <xsl:sort select="number(contains($alphanumeric, substring(.,1,1)))" order="descending" data-type="number" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,1,1)" data-type="number" order="ascending" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,1,1)" data-type="text" order="ascending" />

            <xsl:sort select="number(contains($alphanumeric, substring(.,2,1)))" order="descending" data-type="number" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,2,1)" data-type="number" order="ascending" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,2,1)" data-type="text" order="ascending" />

            <xsl:sort select="number(contains($alphanumeric, substring(.,3,1)))" order="descending" data-type="number" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,3,1)" data-type="number" order="ascending" />
            <xsl:sort select="substring(.,3,1)" data-type="text" order="ascending" />

            <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
      </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

All suggestions appreciated.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Gertone (Geert Bormans)

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

hc0904pcd

ASKER

thank you :)

hc0904pcd

ASKER

That was exactly the help I needed!

<xsl:variable name="sort_input" select="'aAbBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTuUvVwWxXyYzZ012345679 ?!*'" />
<xsl:variable name="sort_output" select="' !*?012345679aAbBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTuUvVwWxXyYzZ'" />
<xsl:template match="/">
      <items>
            <standard_sort>
                  <xsl:for-each select="//item">
                        <xsl:sort select="." />
                        <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
                  </xsl:for-each>
            </standard_sort>
            <custom_sort>
                  <xsl:for-each select="//item">
                        <xsl:sort select="translate(., $sort_input, $sort_output)" data-type="text" order="ascending" />
                        <xsl:copy-of select="." />
                  </xsl:for-each>
            </custom_sort>
      </items>
</xsl:template>

input:
<items>
      <item>abc</item>
      <item>a!c</item>
      <item>a2c</item>
</items>

output:
<items>
      <standard_sort>
            <item>a!c</item>
            <item>a2c</item>
            <item>abc</item>
      </standard_sort>
      <custom_sort>
            <item>abc</item>
            <item>a2c</item>
            <item>a!c</item>
      </custom_sort>
</items>

Gertone (Geert Bormans)

welcome