XSLT using variable in for-each select

Question

I am trying to supply a dynamic name to a for-each select and cannot seem to get it to work.

My template is intended to allow a specific tag name to be passed in and then those nodes are selected from the xml and used for processing.

<xsl:param name="tagName" select="'DefaultTag'" />

<xsl:variable name="DataSource" select="document('../xml/datasource.xml')"/>

<xsl:template name="ProcessData">
    <xsl:for-each select="$DataSource//$tagName/DataValue" >

        ... Data operations here ...

    </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

If I replace the $tagName in the for-each select with a hard-coded value then it works (for that value).

How do I get the variable substitution to happen using the param value?

Thanks, -Dennis

What happens if you simply remove the single quotes around DefaultTag? Otherwise, please post a complete XSLT stylesheet so that people can test themselves. — Mathias Müller
– Mathias Müller, Commented Feb 23, 2014 at 17:44

Ian Roberts · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-23 18:31:21Z

4

You can't use variables like this in xpath to generate "dynamic" expressions, but in this case the variable part is just a single element name so you can filter using a predicate:

$DataSource//*[local-name() = $tagName]/DataValue

answered Feb 23, 2014 at 18:31

Ian Roberts

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2 Comments

Dennis Buttery Over a year ago

Perfect! That was it. I knew there had to be a way ... Thanks!

Mathias Müller Over a year ago

@DennisButtery Please accept this answer (mark the tick on the left so that it appears in green). This is common practice on Stackoverflow.

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