XSLT render string as html with replace function

Question

Suppose the following input xml:

<div text="This is [BFboldBF]">
</div>

The goal is to transform this into this:

 <div>
      This is <span class="bold">bold</span> text
 </div>

My xsl has the following setting:

<xsl:output method="html" encoding="utf-8" indent="no" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />

I tried substitution via the replace function

<xsl:variable name="lfL">
  <xsl:text>&lt;span class="bold"&gt;</xsl:text>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="close">
  <xsl:text>&lt;span/&gt;</xsl:text>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="text" select="@text"/>
<xsl:variable name="lfBT" select="replace($text, '\[BF', $lfL)"/>
<xsl:variable name="rfBT" select="replace($lfBT, 'BF\]', $close)"/>

and rendering the text variable via

<div>
  <xsl:value-of select="$text" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
</div>

this however does not render the xml. Instead it renders it as plain text, with the brackets escaped '&lt';

The use of replace suggests you have XSLT 2 or 3 so in any case, if your task is to analyze/process/parse plain text but to construct nodes like span or b elements, use xsl:analyze-string (in XSLT 2 or 3) or the function analyze-string (in XSLT 3) instead of replace. — Martin Honnen
– Martin Honnen, Commented Feb 14, 2022 at 21:26

Michael Kay · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-14 22:56:17Z

1

Try to avoid disable-output-escaping, because it won't work in all environments. Not all XSLT processors support it, and some support it only if you run the transformation in a particular way. That's because it requires some out-of-band communication between the XSLT processor and the serializer.

The way to do this is analyse-string:

<xsl:template match="div[@text]">
  <div>
    <xsl:analyse-string select="@text" regex="\[BF(.*)BF\]">
      <xsl:on-match>
        <bold><xsl:value-of select="regex-group(1)"/></bold>
      </xsl:on-match>
      <xsl:on-no-match>
        <xsl:value-of select="."/>
      </xsl:on-no-match>
    </xsl:analyze-string>
  </div>
</xsl:template>

Not tested.

answered Feb 14, 2022 at 22:56

Michael Kay

165k11 gold badges97 silver badges173 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

XSLT render string as html with replace function

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related