Using a param as the argument to XSL select statement

Question

I am using apache fop to produce a PDF, I have an XSL-FO template that produces a table and I would like to be able to call the template multiple times, with different select parameters.

here is my xsl stylesheet

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"
                xmlns:fox="http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/extensions"
                version="1.0">
    <xsl:output method="html"/>

    <xsl:template name="checklist">
        <xsl:param name="H1"/>
        <xsl:param name="H2"/>
        <xsl:param name="H3"/>
        <xsl:param name="src"/>
        <fo:block width="19cm" >
            <fo:table  font-size="8pt" table-layout="fixed" width="100%">
                <fo:table-column column-width="1.2cm"/>
                <fo:table-column column-width="16.5cm"/>
                <fo:table-column column-width="1.2cm"/>
                <fo:table-header font-weight="bold" background-color="lightgrey">
                    <fo:table-row>
                        <fo:table-cell>
                            <fo:block><xsl:value-of select="$H1"/></fo:block>
                        </fo:table-cell>
                        <fo:table-cell>
                            <fo:block text-align="center"><xsl:value-of select="$H2"/></fo:block>
                        </fo:table-cell>
                        <fo:table-cell>
                            <fo:block><xsl:value-of select="$H3"/></fo:block>
                        </fo:table-cell>
                    </fo:table-row>
                </fo:table-header>
                <fo:table-body>

                    <xsl:apply-templates select="$src" />

                </fo:table-body>
            </fo:table>
        </fo:block>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="item">
        <fo:table-row line-stacking-strategy="line-height" margin="0mm" space-before="1mm" background-color="white">
            <xsl:variable name="hdr" select="hdr"/>
            <xsl:choose>
                <xsl:when test="$hdr = 'y'">
                    <fo:table-cell number-columns-spanned="3" background-color="lightgrey" border="1px solid #b8b6b6">
                        <fo:block>
                            <fo:inline>
                                <xsl:value-of select="id"/>&#x00A0;
                                <xsl:value-of select="description"/>
                            </fo:inline>
                        </fo:block>
                    </fo:table-cell>
                </xsl:when>
                <xsl:otherwise>
                    <fo:table-cell border="1px solid #b8b6b6" vertical-align="middle" text-align="center">
                        
                        <fo:block line-height="4mm">
                            <xsl:value-of select="id"/>
                        </fo:block>
                    </fo:table-cell>
                    <fo:table-cell border="1px solid #b8b6b6" padding-left="3pt">
                        <fo:block>
                            <xsl:value-of select="description"/>
                        </fo:block>
                    </fo:table-cell>
                    <fo:table-cell border="1px solid #b8b6b6" text-align="center" padding-right="3pt">
                        <xsl:variable name="outcome" select="outcome"/>
                        <fo:block color="white">
                            <!--<fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/c1.svg" width="4.0mm" height="4.0mm" content-width="scale-to-fit" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>-->
                            <xsl:choose>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'ok'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/c1n.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="4.0mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'c1'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/ok.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.9mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'c2'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/c2.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.8mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'c3'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/c3.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.7mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'fi'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/fi.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.6mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'nv'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/nv.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.5mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'na'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/na.svg" vertical-align="middle"  height="3.4mm"  content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                                <xsl:when test="$outcome = 'lim'">
                                    <fo:external-graphic src="file:///F:/Projects/Active/eCert/src/resources/lim.svg" vertical-align="middle" height="3.3mm" content-height="scale-to-fit"/>
                                </xsl:when>
                            </xsl:choose>
                        </fo:block>
                
                    </fo:table-cell>
                </xsl:otherwise>
            </xsl:choose>
        </fo:table-row>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

And here is one of the flows that calls the template

<fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
                    <fo:block />
                    <xsl:call-template name="checklist">
                        <xsl:with-param name="H1" select="'Item No.'"/>
                        <xsl:with-param name="H2" select="'Description'"/>
                        <xsl:with-param name="H3" select="'Outcome'"/>
                        <xsl:with-param name="src" select="'eicr/checklist/item'"/>
                        
                    </xsl:call-template>
                        
                </fo:flow>

When I execute FOP I get the following error ** Can not convert #STRING to a NodeList!** Parameters H1, H2 and H3 are used as the column headers and that part works fine The src param is the one that should be used to select the items from from an xml list.

I am new xsl fo so any help or pointers to documentation that can help me achieve the desired result would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Answer 1

Remove the single-quotes around eicr/checklist/item. 'eicr/checklist/item' is a string literal; eicr/checklist/item is a location path that will select elements relative to the context node.

---

The alternative that I was trying to avoid (because it's more verbose) is to apply templates before or as part of calling the template and then just copying the result to the result tree:

<xsl:with-param name="src">
   <xsl:apply-templates select="eicr/checklist/item" />
</xsl:with-param>

<fo:table-body>
  <xsl:copy-of select="$src" />
</fo:table-body>

It's a technique that you see in the DocBook XSLT 1.0 stylesheets, e.g.:

https://github.com/docbook/xslt10-stylesheets/blob/6ff683948c5a85949e4b7661f302e8b5f12f7bf2/xsl/fo/block.xsl#L181