Creating semantic tables with rowspan via xslt

Question

I have following xml document:

...

<x>
<symptom><descr></descr></symptom>
<cause></cause>
<solution></solution>
<cause></cause>
<solution></solution>
</x>

...

In my document I have several <x>

In each <x> I have only one <symptom> and n <cause> and <solution> whereby the amount of <cause> and <solution> is always the same.

I want to get following autmatically generated structure:

<table>
<tr>
<td rowspan=count(cause)><xsl:value-of select="symptom/descr"></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="cause"></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="symptom"></td>
<tr>
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="cause"></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="symptom"></td>
<tr>
...
</table>

I tried following code, which I know is totally wrong. But I'm stuck since several hours and couldn't find any good solution on the internet.

    <xsl:for-each select="cause">
             <tr>
               <td rowspan="count(.)">
                 <xsl:value-of select="../descr[1]"/>
               </td>
               <td>
                 <xsl:value-of select="."/>
               </td>
               <xsl:for-each select="../solution">
                <td>
                 <xsl:value-of select="."/>
               </td>
</xsl:for-each>
 </tr>
             </xsl:for-each>
      </table>

Answer 1

You're on the right lines with one tr per cause, how about this:

<xsl:template match="x">
  <table>
    <xsl:for-each select="cause">
      <!-- the index of this cause within the list of causes in the current x -->
      <xsl:variable name="pos" select="position()" />
      <tr>
        <!-- first cause - create the spanning symptom cell -->
        <xsl:if test="$pos = 1">
          <td rowspan="{last()}"><xsl:value-of select="../symptom/descr"/></td>
        </xsl:if>
        <!-- this cause -->
        <td><xsl:value-of select="." /></td>
        <!-- the matching solution -->
        <td><xsl:value-of select="../solution[$pos]" /></td>
      </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </table>
</xsl:template>

A trick here is the last() function, which returns the total number of nodes that the current for-each (or apply-templates) is processing, which in this case is precisely the number of rows you want to span.

Answer 2

This is based on the assumption that you want as result a table with following structure: Given an example input XML

<x>
  <symptom>
    <descr>
      Description
    </descr>
  </symptom>
  <cause>
    Cause 1
  </cause>
  <solution>
    Solution 1
  </solution>
  <cause>
    Cause 2
  </cause>
  <solution>
    Solution 2
  </solution>
</x>

I assume you want following table:

<table>
   <tr>
     <td rowspan="2">Description</td>
     <td>Cause 1</td>
     <td>Solution 1</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td>Cause 2</td>
     <td>Solution 2</td>
   </tr>
</table>

This could be done with following XSLT:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:transform xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="html"  omit-xml-declaration="yes" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />
  <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
    <xsl:template match="x">
      <table>
        <xsl:for-each select="cause">
          <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="row">
            <xsl:with-param name="amount" select="count(../cause)"/>
            <xsl:with-param name="position" select="position()"/>
          </xsl:apply-templates>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </table>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="cause" mode="row">
    <xsl:param name="amount"/>
    <xsl:param name="position"/>
      <tr>
        <xsl:if test="$position = 1">
          <td rowspan="{$amount}">
              <xsl:value-of select="//symptom/descr"/>
          </td>
        </xsl:if>
        <td>
          <xsl:value-of select="."/>
        </td>
        <td>
          <xsl:value-of select="following-sibling::solution"/>
        </td>
    </tr>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:transform>

For each cause a row is created by applying the template

<xsl:template match="cause" mode="row">

with the amount of rows and the the position of the current cause as parameters. If the position is 1, the description is written as value in a td with the amount of cause as value of rowspan.
Each row contains the value of the current cause:

<td>
  <xsl:value-of select="."/>
</td>

and the value of the solution at the same position (the solution which is the following-sibling of the current cause):

<td>
  <xsl:value-of select="following-sibling::solution"/>
</td>