[xsl] Non Existent attribute, and other things.

[Richard Mitchell <Richard dot Mitchell at vbnonline dot com>]

Well I would have thought that a possibly non-existent
attribute is 0 or not would be

not(number(@value))

But that seems to return false when the attribute isn't
there. So I end up doing...

count(@value) = 0 or not(number(@value))

...which just seems a little awkward.

Also thanks for all of the help with the ancestor-or-self
business the other day. Because I was using the test so often
I have actually ended up putting it in a scripting tag ( sorry ).
As calling xsl:template xsl:with-param was just too much too often,
also could somebody explain what Jeni's suggestion meant when it
said...

key('Ps', $name)[count(.|$Ps) = count($Ps)]

...as I really don't understand it.


Finally I thought there was an equivalent to the C ?: notation
in XSL but I can't seem to find it. On several occasions in my
code I end with the same fragment.

		<xsl:variable name="shorter">
			<xsl:choose>
				<xsl:when test="@short">
					<xsl:value-of select="@short"/>
				</xsl:when>
				<xsl:otherwise>
					<xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
				</xsl:otherwise>
			</xsl:choose>
		</xsl:variable>
		<menu name="{$name}">

There must be a more succinct method.

Thanks for all the help but it looks like I won't be able
to persuade my company to send me to the XSLT conference so
hope you all have a good time.

Richard Mitchell
Software Developer
http://www.vbnonline.com/

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