Re: [xsl] Traversing a XML tree multiple times

["Vadim Permyakov" <vadimpermyakov at hotmail dot com>]

Hi, Jeroen

I had the same problem and we had to develop so called Multi-X Engine (MXE) 
to solve it. Unfortunately I simply cannot find time to put it on Internet 
for free download (inspite of the project was developed more then 1.5 year 
ago). But anyway I hope that it may be useful to reuse an idea, it is 
discrabed here:

http://www.softcorporation.com/xsl/mxtransf.html

The problem with making transformation in one shut was that it quickly 
becomes very messy and in a week later it is hard to understand what this 
transformation doing. As well we saw that to make several small 
transformations is faster then to do one but complicate.

By the way about global variables. We used extensions, so variable 
accessible not only from different nodes or templates but for all subsequent 
"traversals". Here is an example:

http://www.softcorporation.com/xsl/xsleasy3.html

I hope it may be useful. I think I would be able to find time to put it on 
Internet, but may be little later.

Vadim


>From: "Paul Tyson" <paul@precisiondocuments.com>
>Reply-To: xsl-list@lists.mulberrytech.com
>To: <xsl-list@lists.mulberrytech.com>
>Subject: Re: [xsl] Traversing a XML tree multiple times
>Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 12:13:34 -0700
>
>Jeroen:
>
>The answer is probably "yes", but without more specific information no one
>could really say for certain.
>
>You can "traverse" the document (or any portion of it) as many times as
>needed simply by applying (or calling) templates.   Remember, though, that
>the entire document tree is accessible "all the time" when the document is
>being processed--no matter which particular element or attribute template 
>is
>currently active.  So, it is easy to select unique transformation of any
>node based on characteristics of any other node, without explicitly
>"traversing" the document repeatedly.  You refer to other nodes in the
>document with XPath expressions.
>
>There are many different techniques of conditional transformation--the best
>one for your application depends mostly on the particular structure of your
>source documents, and the characteristics that must be selected to
>conditionalize each stage of transformation.
>
>If you are not familiar with functional programming techniques, you may be
>frustrated with the variable-binding and -referencing capabilities of XSLT.
>For instance, you can't set a variable value in one node, and then refer to
>the variable to get that value while processing another node.  Likewise, 
>you
>can't set a variable value during one "traversal", and then use it during a
>subsequent "traversal".  (You can, however, bind a top-level variable to 
>the
>result of applying a template.  Then that variable-binding is visible 
>within
>all templates in the stylesheet.)
>
>XSLT is most effective for problems that are conceptualized and stated as
>tree transformation problems.  It can be terribly frustrating (and may not
>be appropriate) for problems that only involve a sequence of imperative
>commands on a serialized data set (which is what you get when you simply
>"traverse" a document tree).
>
>I'm sure you would get many suggestions from this list if you posted some
>more specific information about your problem.
>
>Good luck,
>Paul Tyson
>Precision Documents  http://precisiondocuments.com
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jeroen Benckhuijsen" <j.f.benckhuijsen@home.nl>
>To: <XSL-List@lists.mulberrytech.com>
>Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2001 9:54 AM
>Subject: [xsl] Traversing a XML tree multiple times
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've been playing around with XML and XSLT lately and i really don't
> > have any clue how to solve this problem. I want to transform an XML
> > document using XSL. However i nedd to traverse the tree multiple times.
> > The first time i want to make a selection, the second a different
> > selection (based on the results of the first selection), etc. Is this
> > possible in 1 xsl document?
> >
> > TIA
> >
> > --
> > Jeroen Benckhuijsen
> >
> > Software Engineer
> > Phoenix Software
> >
> >  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> >
>
>
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>


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