Re: [xsl] Is recursion in XSL really this difficult?

[Wendell Piez <wapiez at mulberrytech dot com>]

Hello Anonymous:

Ordinarily, I'm reluctant to answer posts from people who don't sign their 
name, since I like to have at least *some* clue of who they are.

But since I tackled a problem somewhat like yours back when in a project I 
distributed, I thought I'd post it.

Note that this recursive string-finding bit doesn't do a case-insensitive 
match, or make allowances for whitespace (which, judging from a cursory 
glance at your code, you apparently want). But it might give you a place to 
start.

Import this stylesheet into yours:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
                 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";>

<!-- The 'segmentfunc' named template returns, for a given node,
      a text string with all occurrences of a given substring
      isolated by markup. The substring to be isolated must be
      passed to the template as the 'find' parameter: its markup
      is provided by another named template, 'displayfound' (to
      be provided in the main stylesheet).

      Wendell Piez, Mulberry Technologies, December 1999.      -->

<xsl:template name="segmentfunc">
   <xsl:param name="procstring">
     <!-- the string to be processed. Trimmed recursively until
          all occurrences have been isolated and passed to
          'display'.                                           -->
     <xsl:value-of select="."/>
   </xsl:param>
   <xsl:choose>
     <xsl:when test="$find and contains($procstring, $find)">
       <xsl:value-of select="substring-before($procstring, $find)"/>
       <xsl:call-template name="displayfound"/>
       <xsl:call-template name="segmentfunc">
         <xsl:with-param name="procstring"
                       select="substring-after($procstring, $find)"/>
       </xsl:call-template>
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise>
       <xsl:value-of select="$procstring"/>
     </xsl:otherwise>
   </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

-- and then, place a template such as this one in your main stylesheet (to 
provide your found string with markup in the output) --

<xsl:template name="displayfound">
   <!-- Providing markup for the found string. -->
   <xsl:param name="displaystring"/>
   <b>
     <xsl:value-of select="$find"/>
   </b>
</xsl:template>

(This one wraps your found string in a <b> element, assuming that string is 
identified in a global variable or parameter $find; do what you will.)

I hope that helps.

--Wendell


======================================================================
Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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