Trying to understand what this does...

[Josh]

I am trying to determine exactly what is happening with the
"<xsl:apply-templates select=".|following-
sibling::childnode[position() &lt; $cellsPerRow]" mode="table"/>"
line.


My understanding is that it should send the next 5 (cellsPerRow) to
the "childnode" template for processing but I expect that my
understanding may be wrong, as it doesn't actually work. The output I
get is:

<table>
<tr>
<td>value1</td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>value2</td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<!-- repeat <tr> block for the number of childnodes found -->
</table>

I get that the FillerCells template is getting invoked but I don't
know why. If I comment out the call to FillerCells I get rid of the
"<td> </td>" But I thought that the code mentioned above should fill
in the <td>'s and only when it had nothing to put in them call
FillerCells.

Any help is appreciated greatly.

Josh

---------------------------------------------
Original XML File:
---------------------------------------------
<xml>
<parentnode>
<childnode>value1</childnode>
</parentnode>
<parentnode>
<childnode>value2</childnode>
</parentnode>
<!-- and so on for a couple of hundred repeats -->
</xml>
---------------------------------------------

XSL File:
--------------------------------------------
<xsl:template match="parentnode" mode="menu">
<xsl:variable name="cellsPerRow" select="5"/>
<xsl:for-each select="childnode[position() mod $cellsPerRow =
1]">
<tr>
<xsl:apply-templates select=".|following-
sibling::childnode[position() &lt; $cellsPerRow]" mode="table"/>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="childnode">
<!-- snipped table building code -->
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
<!-- snipped table building code -->

<xsl:if test="(position() = $apptotal) and (position() &lt;
$cellsPerRow)">
<xsl:call-template name="FillerCells">
<xsl:with-param name="cellCount"
select="$cellsPerRow - position()" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="FillerCells">
<xsl:param name="cellCount"/>
<td>&#160;</td>
<xsl:if test="$cellCount > 1">
<xsl:call-template name="FillerCells">
<xsl:with-param name="cellCount" select="$cellCount - 1"/>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
--------------------------------------------

[Christian Wahl]

To answer your first question: <xsl:apply-templates select=".|following-sibling::childnode[position() &lt; $cellsPerRow]" mode="table"/> selects the element itself and following childnode elements (where position is less than $cellsPerRow). It seams that there are only one childnode element in each parentnode – is that right? – so the select only happens once. It uses the mode attribute to select a template with the same mode. Your <xsl:template match="childnode"> does not have this attribute – maybe it should?

What did you expect this code to generate? It seams that it could be don a little simpler, but there could be more use cases (?)

The template <xsl:template name="FillerCells"> is used as a kind of recursive function, repeating itself as long as "cellCount" is greater than 1. cellCount start value depends  on the number of childnode elements (if it works...).

[Josh]

Thank you for the explanation, Christian. I had independently figured
that it wasn't what I needed. I was originally interpreting
"following::sibling" as being the equivalent node (childnode in my
example) of the the next parent node which I now know is incorrect.
Essentially I ended up getting around it using keys because what I
needed was a grouping of every 5 childnode's (I am building a table).
A more accurate representation of my XML source structure would have
been as follows.

<xml>
<parentnode>
<childnode>value1</childnode>

<anotherChildNode>value<anotherChildNode>
<yetAnotherChildNode>value<yetAnotherChildNode>
<...>

</parentnode>
<parentnode>
<childnode>value2</childnode>

<anotherChildNode>value<anotherChildNode>
<yetAnotherChildNode>value<yetAnotherChildNode>
<...>

</parentnode>
<!-- and so on for a couple of hundred repeats -->
</xml>

So by using keys I was able to extract all childnodes into a key and
then sort the output calling key recursively.

The ultimate goal, which I have now acheived, was to output a table
which was part of a menu system. So now I have a menu of all of my
childnodes, sorted alpahbetically, each letter being grouped into a
dynamically sized table without the need for JS. :)

Thank you again for your help Your explanation helped clear up some
other cobwebs I had about "following::sibling".

Josh