XSLT to transform a "flat" XML file into a structured text file

[R. P.]

Subject: XSLT to transform a flat XML file into a structured text file

I have an XML file that lists the PDF file segment names and titles of a
larger document and looks something like this:

<DOCUMENT>
......
...... some lead elements
......
<SEGMENT_LIST>
<SEGMENT FILE="fwd.pdf">Foreword</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap1.pdf">Chapter 1</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap2.pdf">Chapter 2</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap3.pdf">Chapter 3</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1fwd.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Foreword</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1defs.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Definitions</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1meth.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Methodology</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap1.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 1A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap2.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 2A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap3.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 3A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap1.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 1B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap2.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 2B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap3.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 3B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appa.pdf" GROUP="Appendices">Appendix A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appb.pdf" GROUP="Appendices">Appendix B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appc.pdf" GROU2P="Appendices">Appendix C</SEGMENT>
</SEGMENT_LIST>
</DOCUMENT>

I need to transform the SEGMENT_LIST elements into a structured text
file for use by another application to construct the Table Of Content
(TOC). The file would be vertical bar (|) separated list of PDF file
segment names and their titles with a single-digit TOC indentation level
indicator in the first position as so:

1|fwd.pdf|Foreword
1|chap1.pdf|Chapter 1
1|chap2.pdf|Chapter 2
1|chap3.pdf|Chapter 3
1||Volume 1
2|v1fwd.pdf|Foreword
2|v1defs.pdf|Definitions
2|v1meth.pdf|Methodology
2||Section A
3|v1sachap1.pdf|Chapter 1A
3|v1sachap2.pdf|Chapter 2A
3|v1sachap3.pdf|Chapter 3A
2||Section B
3|v1sbchap1.pdf|Chapter 1B
3|v1sbchap2.pdf|Chapter 2B
3|v1sbchap3.pdf|Chapter 3B
1||Appendices
2|appa.pdf|Appendix A
2|appb.pdf|Appendix B
2|appc.pdf|Appendix C

I think you can imagine from the transformed file how the TOC would look
like:

Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Volume 1
Foreword
Definitions
Methodology
Section A
Chapter 1A
Chapter 2A
Chapter 3A
Section B
Chapter 1B
Chapter 2B
Chapter 3B
Appendices
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C

My problem is that while I find it easy to write an XSLT stylesheet to
create the first 4 lines of the output file where the source XML does
not have either of the optional VOLUME and GROUP attributes:

<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="/DOCUMENT/SEGMENT_LIST/*" />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="SEGMENT">
<xsl:text>1|</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="@FILE"/>
<xsl:text>|</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

I have no idea however, how to transform the rest of XML because I don't
know how to process those attributes to make them Volume, Section and
Appendices headers in the output file for all the segments with the
same attribute value and with the proper indent level numbers.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Rudy

 

[Joris Gillis]

Subject: XSLT to transform a flat XML file into a structured text file

I have an XML file that lists the PDF file segment names and titles ofa
larger document and looks something like this:

<DOCUMENT>
.....
..... some lead elements
.....
<SEGMENT_LIST>
<SEGMENT FILE="fwd.pdf">Foreword</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap1.pdf">Chapter 1</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap2.pdf">Chapter 2</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="chap3.pdf">Chapter 3</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1fwd.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Foreword</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1defs.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Definitions</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1meth.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1">Methodology</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap1.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 1A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap2.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 2A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sachap3.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
A">Chapter 3A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap1.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 1B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap2.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 2B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="v1sbchap3.pdf" VOLUME="Volume 1" GROUP='Section
B">Chapter 3B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appa.pdf" GROUP="Appendices">Appendix A</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appb.pdf" GROUP="Appendices">Appendix B</SEGMENT>
<SEGMENT FILE="appc.pdf" GROU2P="Appendices">Appendix C</SEGMENT>
</SEGMENT_LIST>
</DOCUMENT>

I need to transform the SEGMENT_LIST elements into a structured text
file for use by another application to construct the Table Of Content
(TOC). The file would be vertical bar (|) separated list of PDF file
segment names and their titles with a single-digit TOC indentation level
indicator in the first position as so:

You probably should look for a solution involving 'multi-level grouping',
possibly with muenchian technique...

In the mean time, you could try out this quick and dirty solution:
(I wouldn't use it in a production environment)

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

<xsl:template match="SEGMENT">
<xsl:variable name="this" select="@*[not(name()='FILE')]"/>
<xsl:variable name="that"
select="preceding-sibling::SEGMENT[1]/@*[not(name()='FILE')]"/>

<xsl:if test="$this[not(.=$that)] or count($this)!=count($that)">
<xsl:value-of select="count($this)"/>||<xsl:value-of
select="$this[not(.=$that)]"/>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:if>

<xsl:value-of select="count($this) + 1"/>|<xsl:value-of select="@FILE"/>
<xsl:text>|</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
<xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>


regards,

 

[R. P.]

You probably should look for a solution involving 'multi-level
grouping', possibly with muenchian technique...

In the mean time, you could try out this quick and dirty solution:
(I wouldn't use it in a production environment)

Thanks Joris, I wouldn't do it either. If for nothing else, it did not
provide the sought results on my first attempt. :-( However, you gave me
some tips on the direction I should be looking at for solution,
especially the term that describes my problem: "multi-level grouping."
I didn't know there was a name for it.

Regards,
Rudy

 

[Joe Kesselman]

In case you aren't aware of it: Check the XSLT FAQ website's grouping
and indexing pages; some of the techniques there are quite useful but
not at all obvious.

http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/sect21.html