[xsl] Creating index headers

[Manne Miettinen <manne dot miettinen at csc dot fi>]

Hi there,

I have a glossary of scientific terms in xml that contains entries like this:

  <entry type='n'>
	<term>A term</term>
	<treq>Finnish translation equivalen</treq>
	<def>Definition(s) of the term</def>
	... some other fields omitted
  </entry>

I would like to create html-version of the glossary where all the entries would
be sorted alphabetically using the content of term-element as sort key. For each
new beginning letter I would like to produce a header and anchor like this:

<h2>A</h2>
<a name=a"/>

<dl>
<dt type="term">A term</dt>
<dt type="treq">Finnish translation equivalent</dt> 
<dd>Definitions of the term</dd>

<h2>B</h2>
...

My first cut at the problem was creating a variable for each letter in the 
alphabet, like this

<xsl:variable name="a" select="/glossary/entry[substring(term,1,1)='a']|entry[substring(term, 1,1)='A']"/>
<xsl:variable name="b" select="/glossary/entry[substring(term,1,1)='b']|entry[substring(term, 1,1)='B']"/>

However the glossary contains also numbers and symbols (, +, &alpha;, &beta; etc
that I would like to lump under a common heading of "Numbers and symbols". 

Any suggestions?

-- 
Manne MIETTINEN			         manne.miettinen@csc.fi
CSC - Scientific Computing Ltd.		+358 9  457 2517 (Tel)
PO BOX 405				+358 50 381 9510 (GSM)
FIN 02101 Espoo, FINLAND		+358 9  457 2302 (Fax)				 

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