[xep-support] xsl:sort in apply-templates

[G. Ken Holman]

At 2005-02-25 15:39 +0100, Henk Rutten wrote:
>What if you remove the forward slashes within your sort:attribute select
><xsl:sort select="editor | author[1] " /> instead of <xsl:sort
>select="//editor | //author[1] " />

Your <xsl:sort select="editor | author"/> suggestion would work as an 
exclusive "one or the other" sort only if there were only one present.

Since <xsl:sort> bases the lexicographic ordering on the value of the XPath 
expression, providing the union of two nodes in the expression will cause 
only the value of the first in document order to be used, so if both are 
present, it will do only the first.

This would be an improvement on my suggestion of:

    <xsl:sort select="editor"/>
    <xsl:sort select="author"/>

in that my suggestion would group all authors in order before all editors 
in order, while your suggestion would interleave all the authors and 
editors in the lexicographic ordering.

If, however, one wanted to ensure the editor had preference over the author 
in the sort, and you don't know which is first or you know the author is 
first, then your suggestion would need to be modified to be:

     <xsl:sort select="self::*[editor]/editor |
                       self::*[not(editor)]/author"/>

... so as to say: the use of editor when the editor child exists and the 
use of author when the editor child does not exist.

Another way to say the same thing would be:

     <xsl:sort select="editor |
                       author[not(../editor)]"/>

... so as to say: only use the author child if its parent has no editor 
children.

I hope this helps.

............................ Ken

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