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Re: counting characters in an XML document
- To: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
- Subject: Re: [xsl] counting characters in an XML document
- From: Wendell Piez <wapiez at mulberrytech dot com>
- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 17:12:19 -0400
- Reply-To: xsl-list at lists dot mulberrytech dot com
Tom:
Mike B. has already pointed out that this is more problematic than it may
seem on the surface.
If you want to count the number of characters *just in text nodes*, you can
use the XPath expression string-length(/) to get a count. (The root node,
taken as a string, is the concatenation of all the text nodes in the
document.) I am leaving aside complexities of counting Unicode combining
characters together or separately, etc.: most (all) processors will just
give a straight character count, I think.
Also, whitespace characters such as line feeds, extra space to indent
elements, etc. will be counted unless you strip them with <xsl:strip-space
elements="..."/>.
Counting the length of the text might be a useful alternative for your
purposes to counting elements.
Cheers,
Wendell
At 03:10 PM 10/24/01, you wrote:
>Hi,
>Does anyone know how I can use XSL to count the number of characters in an
>XML document. I want to process the XML so that, if there are less than a
>certain amount of characters, a certain message gets printed. Another option
>could be counting number of tags (elements)
>
>any ideas out there?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Tom
>
> XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com
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