Transform XML with nested attributes using XSLT

Question

I have an XML file with layout like this:

<root>
    <node>
        <descriptors>
            <attribute attr="important"/>
        </descriptors>
        <value>
            Some
        </value>
        <value>
            text
        </value>
        <value>
            here.
        </value>
    <node>
</root>

There are many nodes and each one is differentiated by the elements in the descriptors element. I need to extract the text so that I'd have this:

<element>
    Sometexthere.
</element>

I have an xsl transformation:

<xsl:template match="//attribute[@attr='important']">
    <element>
        <xsl:for-each select="../../value">
            <xsl:value-of select="." />
        </xsl:for-each>
    </element>
</xsl:template>

This instead just writes all the value elements in every node element in the file. I think I don't really understand the way scoping works (like when . points to the current element/node, but what is the current element/node in the loop).

How should I approach this?

EDIT

My actual xsl stylesheet (I'm transforming a docx file):

<xsl:template match="/">
        <order>
            <xsl:apply-templates/>
        </order>
    </xsl:template> 
    <xsl:template match="/w:document/w:body/w:p[w:pPr/w:pStyle/@w:val='Pealkiri1']">
        <name>
            <xsl:for-each select="w:t">
                <xsl:value-of select="." />
            </xsl:for-each>
        </name>
    </xsl:template>

Nils Werner · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 10:49:30Z

2

You could try matching the node element that contains descriptors/attribute/@attr=... instead of the attribute element itself.

The for-each context would then be relative to that node.

<xsl:template match="/">
    <order>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="//node[descriptors/attribute/@attr='important']" />
    </order>
</xsl:template> 

<xsl:template match="node">
    <element>
        <xsl:for-each select="value">
            <xsl:value-of select="." />
        </xsl:for-each>
    </element>
</xsl:template>

edited Jul 18, 2013 at 10:49

answered Jul 18, 2013 at 10:25

Nils Werner

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5 Comments

j0ntech Over a year ago

This produces the same result, but it omits the <element> tag. So now it's only text. Pretty weird.

Nils Werner Over a year ago

Can you post the rest of your stylesheet? I guess you're missing <xsl:template match="/"> or are messing up an <xsl:apply-templates ...>.

j0ntech Over a year ago

I have the template matching /, but that just surrounds the text with my own root element (order).

Nils Werner Over a year ago

The problem lies in your apply-templates: Without the select attribute, you will implicitely select all children. Since there were not templates defined, XSLT was using the default ones. The default templates always spew out the text but leave out the elements.

j0ntech Over a year ago

Okay, now I understand. This helped a lot!

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