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Parse repeating child elements in non-repeating parent node

Anonymous User242906-Nov-2014

I have the following input xml and was wondering if XSLT can handle such transformation. If it can, how can it be achieve?

input xml:

<foo><bar><A>xxx</A><B>yyy</B><C>zzz</C><A>aaa</A><B>bbb</B><C>ccc</C> ... .. </bar></foo>

output xml:

<data><A>xxx</A><B>yyy</B><C>zzz</C></data><data><A>aaa</A><B>bbb</B><C>ccc</C></data> ....

There could be more repeating A, B, C nodes in the example above. Since the repetition isn't in a repeating parent node, it's not possible to use for each. I was exploring the option of for-each-group but not sure if that is applicable. Would appreciate any advise.

xmlxslt xslt-2.0 
Updated on 06-Nov-2014
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1 Answers

Jayden Bell

Jayden Bell

06-Nov-2014
Using XSLT 1.0, following solution is working - tested with your example XML with 6 elements:

<xsl:stylesheetversion="1.0"xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:outputmethod="xml"indent="yes"/>
<xsl:templatematch="/*">
 <xsl:apply-templatesselect="/foo/bar"/>
</xsl:template>
 
<xsl:templatematch="bar">
 <xsl:for-eachselect="*/node()">
   <xsl:iftest="(position()-1) mod(3) = 0">
    <data>
     <xsl:call-template  name="grouping">
      <xsl:with-paramname="position"select="position()"/>
      <xsl:with-paramname="amount"select="3"/>
     </xsl:call-template>
    </data>
   </xsl:if>
  </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
 
<xsl:template  name="grouping">
<xsl:paramname="position"select="0"/>
<xsl:paramname="amount"select="0"/>
<xsl:copy-ofselect="//bar/*[$position]"/>
   <xsl:iftest="$amount > $position or   ($position mod(3) > 0)">
    <xsl:call-template  name="grouping">
      <xsl:with-paramname="position"select="$position + 1"/>
      <xsl:with-paramname="amount"select="$amount"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
   </xsl:if>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Result:

<?xmlversion="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data>
   <A>xxx</A>
   <B>yyy</B>
   <C>zzz</C>
</data>
<data>
   <A>aaa</A>
   <B>bbb</B>
   <C>ccc</C>
</data>

As short explanation - in the template matching "bar" all element-nodes are processed in

<xsl:for-eachselect="*/node()">

By using <xsl:if test="(position()-1) mod(3) = 0"> (which is 0 for the 1st node and for every 3rd node) the template named "grouping" is called to provide generating groups of 3 nodes. This template is called with the parameters  position - the position of the current node - and amount - the amount of nodes to be copied in each group.

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