This is presumably an almost carbon copy of Using XSLT as an XML pre-processor But as the OP of that question did not post a full example, despite being asked to, the replies are no use to anyone not familiar with XSLT. Neither have extensive web searches turned up anything helpful - XSLT seems remarkably poorly documented and little discussed on the Web.
Anyway ...
I have an XML file, say foo.xml, as follows (greatly simplified, obviously):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<main>
<fee>blah</fee>
<ifdef select="OLD_VERSION">
<fi>blah blah</fi>
</ifdef>
</main>
(C-style #ifdef changed to "ifdef" block in light of Ian Roberts's answer)
I want to run an xsltproc command on linux, as follows:
xsltproc --stringparam xmlver NEW_VERSION --nonet foo.xslt foo.xml
and have this use the following XSLT file, foo.xslt, to exclude the #ifdef'ed section:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" />
<xsl:param name="xmlver" required="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="node() | @*">
<xsl:copy><xsl:apply-templates select="node() | @*"/></xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:variable name="defines" select="document($xmlver)/defines"/>
<xsl:template match="ifdef">
<xsl:variable name="this" select="."/>
<xsl:for-each select="$defines[def = $this/@select]">
<xsl:apply-templates select="$this/node()" />
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
(I did use the replies to the question referenced above to construct this XSLT; but the missing ingredient is where/how to incorporate the "xmlver" value. Of course there is no guarantee it is correct in the above; but this essentially what I am asking - How is all this put together in a way that works?)
Any constructive replies will be greatly appreciated, and will doubtless be useful to many people with a similar requirement in the future; but please no tiresome, dogmatic "Why would you want to do that?" replies!
The question you refer to looks like it's based on an XML structure that uses XML elements for its ifdefs. In your case your #ifdef lines are not XML elements, so you can't match them with an XSLT template. You'd be better off using a non-XML tool (possibly even the normal C pre-processor) to handle the ifdefs and feed the resulting XML to an XSLT if you need to do other XML-aware processing on it.
If you're happy to use real XML elements for your ifdefs, as in the previous question:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<main>
<fee>blah</fee>
<ifdef select="OLD_VERSION">
<fi>blah blah</fi>
</ifdef>
</main>
then the question becomes how to treat the xmlver command line parameter as the single ifdef that you want to include, rather than as the location of a file from which to load a whole set of defines (which is how the previous question worked). That is much simpler:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" />
<xsl:param name="xmlver" />
<xsl:template match="node() | @*">
<xsl:copy><xsl:apply-templates select="node() | @*"/></xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="ifdef">
<!-- for the ifdef we want, include all its child elements, text nodes etc
but not its attributes, for other ifdefs do nothing -->
<xsl:if test="@select = $xmlver">
<xsl:apply-templates select="node()" />
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
My previous attempt at this used a <xsl:template match="ifdef[@select=$xmlver]">, which works in some processors but not in xsltproc (it is technically not allowed by the XSLT spec, and xsltproc is stricter than my usual test harness, Xalan).
suggestion: instead of xsltproc, can you just use m4 ?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<main>
<fee>blah</fee>
ifdef(`X',`
<fi>blah blah</fi>
')
</main>
.
$ m4 jeter.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<main>
<fee>blah</fee>
</main>
.
$ m4 -DX jeter.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<main>
<fee>blah</fee>
<fi>blah blah</fi>
</main>
I'd like to start with your general approach:
the replies are no use to anyone not familiar with XSLT. Neither have
extensive web searches turned up anything helpful - XSLT seems
remarkably poorly documented and little discussed on the Web.
This basically tells us that you are trying to write a program in a language you are not familiar with, and that you are trying to find information about that language by googling for it. Is that a good learning strategy?
I would have thought your problem was too many hits rather than too few, for example "XSLT tutorial" gives 2,300,000 hits. The top ones are all well worth a read. It seems odd to describe that as "poorly documented and little discussed".
Personally though if I'm going to start programming in a new language I always start by reading a book on the subject. Online material is rarely as carefully designed, written and reviewed as a text book. Of course I would say that since I'm the author of one of the most popular XSLT reference books, but I think it's true nonetheless.
Now, can I help you with your problem. Not really, I regret. Some people respond to questions on this forum with working tested code that you can use without understanding it. I don't: I simply point people in the right direction; and I'm not going to give you fragments of code in a language you don't understand. Pointing you in the right direction in this case means telling you to learn the language before you try using it.
