A XSLT Question

[Alex Philippi]

Hi, I am now trying to create a new xml document with a xslt. The problem is that I have to create such a xml structure:

<position number="1">
<childs>
<child number="2">
<child number="4">
</childs>
</position>

out of this xml Source:

...
<position number="1">
<parentNumber/>
</position>
<position number="2">
<parentNumber>1</parentNumber>
</position>
<position number="3">
<parentNumber/>
</position>
<position number="4">
<parentNumber>1</parentNumber>
</position>
...

Is it possible to build a "List" with xslt or should I access the XML Source with java and build a new DOM?

[Paul Clapham]

If you want to write Java, then you should write Java. But I warn you that DOM programs are ugly and brittle and hard to maintain when the requirements change.

XSLT is not Java, and it is not like Java. I don't know why you thought you need a list but that is not how you do things in XSLT. What you should do instead is to describe how and when you would create one of those <child> elements, based on the contents of the input file. Then you write XSLT code that does that.

Give that a try. Why do you have an element <child number="2"> and where does the data come from in the input document?

[Alex Philippi]

Hi,
I only want to handle this in java if there is no way to realise it with xslt.
The <child number="2"/> is the transformed result of <position number="2"><parentNumber>1<...../>.

Could I first use (in XSLT) <xsl:apply-templates ... /> to write all <position/> without a parent number to the result xml file and then use again <xsl:apply-templates ... /> to hang all <position> tags with a parentNumber as new <child number="X"/> node under the according <position/> node?

[Roseanne Zhang]

Your job can be done by xslt only.

However, it makes no sense to me. I don't see any reason for me to do it.