Xslt/xpath: count preceding elements which starts-with 'S'

Question

Hi everybody,
I got the following XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT>
     <A1>
          <FOO>1</FOO>
     </A1>
     <A1>
          <FOO>2</FOO>
     </A1>
     <B1>
          <FOO>3</FOO>
     </B1>
     <A1>
          <FOO>4</FOO>
     </A1>
</ROOT>
I want wo count all preceding Elements of each 3
How has the experssion has to look?
count(/ROOT/A1/FOO/preceding::[starts-with(.,'A')])
DOES not work
Any suggestions?
Regards Mario
Edited by: Mario Müller on Sep 12, 2008 2:23 AM

Answer 1

Hi Mario,
What are you using to test xsl expressions?
I am using XSL Tester, all sugestions that i gave you retrieve a solution. Therefore, this solution will depend from XML tree. For instance if you have something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT>
     <A1>
          <FOO>1</FOO>
          <FOO>5</FOO>
                        <A1000>
                              <FOO>46</FOO>
                       <FOO>400</FOO>
                        </A1000>
          <FOO>300</FOO>
     </A1>
     <A2>
          <FOO>2</FOO>
          <FO>6</FO>
     </A2>
     <B1>
          <FOO>3</FOO>
     </B1>
     <A1>
          <FOO>4</FOO>
          <FO>7</FO>
     </A1>
</ROOT>
Using this XSL:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
     <xsl:template match="/">
            <Result>
               ---- Expression ----
          </Result>
     </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Results using the expressions that i gave you, will be:
1.1
<xsl:value-of select="count(//FOO[1][starts-with(name(parent::node()),'A')])"/>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
     <Result>7</Result>
1.2
<xsl:value-of select="count(//FOO[1][starts-with(name(parent::node()),'A')])"/>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
    <Result>4</Result>
2.1
<xsl:value-of select="count(/ROOT/*/FOO[starts-with(name(parent::node()),'A')])"/>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
  <Result>5</Result>
2.2
<xsl:value-of select="count(/ROOT/*/FOO[1][starts-with(name(parent::node()),'A')])"/>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
    <Result>3</Result>
I think the last one, fits your solution. Give me more hints, maybe i can help you.
Best regards,
Pedro Pereira