Re: How to create active hyperlinks from xml file

[Jeni Tennison <Jeni dot Tennison at epistemics dot co dot uk>]

Joe,

><!--this is where I cannot get this to work.  I get "joe" on my webpage but
>it is not a hyperlink
>      <td align="center" class="ind">
>      <xsl:value-of select="xlink:simple"/>
>      </td>
>//-->
>      <td align="center" class="ind">
>      <a href="index.xml"><xsl:value-of select="webadd"/></a>
>      <a href="http://www.joeinternet.net"><xsl:value-of
>select="webadd1"/></a>
>      </td>

Looking at the HTML that's produced by this piece of XSLT identifies the
problem.  At least in SAXON, for the first company (E-Z Credit Motors) you
get:

<td align="center" class="ind">
 <a href="index.xml">click here</a>
 <a href="http://www.joeinternet.net"></a>
</td>

If you look at the input that you're using for that company:

<company>
  <name>E-Z Credit Motors</name>
  <address>
   19465 Sumpter Rd.
   Belleville, MI 48111
  </address>
  <phone>(734) 697-2682</phone>

  <xlink:simple
    xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/XML/XLink/0.9"
    href="mailto:joe@joeinternet.net">
    <email>joe</email>
  </xlink:simple>

  <webadd>click here</webadd>
</company>

You can see that the 'click here' text from within the 'webadd' element is
inserted correctly within the <a href="index.xml">...</a>.  This is because
the XPath used in the 'select' attribute of the xsl:value-of element
specifies that the value of the 'webadd' child of the current node (which
is the 'company' element) should be inserted between those tags.

Within the next link, however, the XSLT processor (an old version of MSXML
to judge by your xsl namespace) tries to insert the value of the 'webadd1'
child of the current node (again, the 'company' element) to create the text
within the <a href="http://www.joeinternet.net">...</a> element.  Your
input for this particular company doesn't have a 'webadd1' element, so no
text is put within the link, so it *appears* that the link isn't there at all.

If you look at the second company (Gib's Auto Sales), then there appears to
be a link to http://www.joeinternet.net, but none to index.xml - there, you
have a 'webadd1' element, but no 'webadd' element.

The solution, then, should be something like:

<td align="center" class="ind">
 <a href="index.xml"><xsl:value-of select="webadd" /></a>
 <!-- href is the value of the href attribute of the xlink:simple element
      that is a child of the current company -->
 <a href="{xlink:simple/@href}">
  <!-- text is the value of the email child of the xlink:simple element
       that is a child of the current company -->
  <xsl:value-of select="xlink:simple/email" />
 </a>
</td>

A couple of points about the versions of the XML-related standards that
you're using.  

The XSLT 1.0 Recommendation was issued in November 1999, and you should
really be using it instead of the old version.  The new namespace is
"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform", and MSXML (and hence IE5) will
support it if you get the latest version from the Microsoft MSDN website
and install it properly.

The Candidate Recommendation of XLink was issued on 3rd July and has a
different namespace ("http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink") and a somewhat
different way of defining links to the one you're using.  You should
*probably* change your input to look something like:

<email xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
       xlink:type="simple"
       xlink:href="mailto:joe@joeinternet.net">
 joe
</email>

but I recommend reading the new version of the XLink spec to see what it
offers.

I hope that helps,

Jeni

Dr Jeni Tennison
Epistemics Ltd, Strelley Hall, Nottingham, NG8 6PE
Telephone 0115 9061301 • Fax 0115 9061304 • Email
jeni.tennison@epistemics.co.uk



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