CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlxsltxpath
Jody Bleyle
Jody Bleyle

Reputation: 1756

Use Xpath to extract the middle of a string

I have an XML file with multiple elements. I'm using XSLT to transform each to a unique XML file. Each has an id attribute that I want to use in the file name and I'm trying to clean up the attribute values. The ids all start with capi_ and some end with _output, so the format is capi_xxx_yyy_output or capi_xxx_yyy.

I can extract the string after capi_:

  <xsl:for-each select="//section">
       <xsl:variable name="cleanId" select="substring-after(@id, '_')" />

From this new string, how do I grab the string before _output? I tried this but it didn't work:

<xsl:for-each select="//section">
       <xsl:variable name="cleanId" select="substring-before(substring-after(@id, '_'), '_output')" />

Thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1160

Answers (2)

Aaron Palmer
Aaron Palmer

Reputation: 9012

Your syntax looks good, you may simply need to implement an <xsl:choose>.

<xsl:variable name="cleanId">
    <xsl:for-each select="//section">
        <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="contains(@id,'_output')">
            <xsl:value-of select="substring-before(substring-after(@id, '_'), '_output')" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
            <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(@id, '_')" />
        </xsl:otherwise>
        </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:for-each>
</xsl:variable>

Upvotes: 0

michael.hor257k
michael.hor257k

Reputation: 117140

I tried this but it didn't work:

<xsl:for-each select="//section"> <xsl:variable name="cleanId" select="substring-before(substring-after(@id, '_'), '_output')" />

It works when the id ends with "_output"; it stops working when it doesn't. So just make sure it always does:

<xsl:variable name="cleanId" select="substring-before(substring-after(concat(@id, '_output'), '_'), '_output')" />

Upvotes: 1

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