The answer here is doing exactly what I want except that I don't want to just remove duplicate siblings of a specific element, I want to remove duplicate siblings of all elements.
Additionally, for my purposes a "duplicate" element will have the same attributes, descendant elements, and text as its sibling.
How can that answer be modified to achieve my goal?
Here is my current style sheet:
XSL:
<!--
When a file is transformed using this stylesheet the output will be
formatted as follows:
1.) Elements named "info" will be removed
2.) Duplicate sibling elements will be removed
3.) Attributes named "file_line_nr" or "file_name" will be removed
4.) Comments will be removed
5.) Processing instructions will be removed
6.) XML declaration will be removed
7.) Extra whitespace will be removed
8.) Empty attributes will be removed
9.) Elements which have no attributes, child elements, or text will be removed
10.) All elements will be sorted by name recursively
11.) All attributes will be sorted by name
-->
<xsl:stylesheet
version="1.0"
xmlns:xalan="http://xml.apache.org/xalan"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output indent="yes" method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<!--
Elements/attributes to remove. Note that comments are not elements or
attributes. Since there is no template to match comments they are
automatically ignored.
-->
<xsl:template match="@*[normalize-space()='']|info|@file_line_nr|@file_name"/>
<!-- Match any attribute -->
<xsl:template match="@*">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Match any element -->
<xsl:template match="*">
<xsl:variable name="elementFragment">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*">
<xsl:sort select="name()"/>
</xsl:apply-templates>
<xsl:apply-templates>
<xsl:sort select="name()"/>
</xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="element" select="xalan:nodeset($elementFragment)/*"/>
<xsl:if test="$element/@* or $element/* or normalize-space($element)">
<xsl:copy-of select="$element"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Input XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?><!-- XML declaration should be removed -->
<z b="b" a="a" c="c">
<?some-app inst="some instruction"?><!-- Processing instructions should be removed -->
<a><!-- Keep elements like this because it has child elements -->
<x c="c" b="b" a="a"/><!-- Keep elements like this because it has attributes -->
<c>some text</c><!-- Keep elements like this because it has text -->
<info a="a"/><!-- Elements named "info" are to be removed -->
<w file_line_nr="42" file_name="somefile.txt"/><!-- Attributes named "file_line_nr" and "file_name" are to be removed which will leave this element empty, so it should be removed too -->
<d/><!-- Remove elements like this because it has not attributes, no children, and no text -->
<v a="a"><!-- Keep this element because it and it sibling "v" element are unique.. It does not have the same exact descendants as its sibling "v" element -->
some text
<i a="a">some text</i>
<q a="a">some text</q>
</v>
<v a="a">
some text
<i a="a">some different text</i><!-- text is different -->
<q a="a">some text</q>
</v>
<e a="a"><!-- Keep this element because it and it sibling "e" element are unique.. It does not have the same exact descendants as its sibling "e" element -->
some text
<j a="a">
<p>some text</p>
</j>
</e>
<e a="a">
some text
<j a="a">
<p>some different text</p><!-- text is different -->
</j>
</e>
<u a="a"><!-- Keep this element because it and it sibling "e" element are unique.. It does not have the same exact descendants as its sibling "e" element -->
some text
<k a="a">some text</k>
<n a="a">some text</n>
</u>
<u a="a">
some text
<k b="b">some text</k><!-- attribute is different -->
<n a="a">some text</n>
</u>
<f a="a"><!-- Keep this element because it and it sibling "f" element are unique.. It does not have the same exact attributes as its sibling "f" element -->
some text
<l a="a">some text</l>
<m a="a">some text</m>
</f>
<f b="b"><!-- attribute is different -->
some text
<l a="a">some text</l>
<m a="a">some text</m>
</f>
<t a="a"><!-- Keep this element because it and it sibling "t" element are unique. It does not have the same exact text as its sibling "t" element -->
some text
<az a="a">some text</az>
<aa a="a">some text</aa>
</t>
<t a="a">
some different text<!-- text is different -->
<az a="a">some text</az>
<aa a="a">some text</aa>
</t>
<g a="a"><!-- Remove this element because it is NOT unique. Its attributes, descendants, and text are exactly the same as its sibling "g" element -->
some text
<ay a="a">some text</ay>
<ab a="a">some text</ab>
</g>
<g a="a">
some text
<ay a="a">some text</ay>
<ab a="a">some text</ab>
</g>
<s a="a"/>
</a>
<y a="a"/>
<b>
<h a="a" />
<r a="a"/>
</b>
</z>
Desired Output XML: (Elements and attributes sorted. Comments and indentation/whitespace would also be removed, but I have added them back in here for readability.)
<z a="a" b="b" c="c">
<a>
<c>some text</c>
<e a="a">
some text
<j a="a">
<p>some text</p>
</j>
</e>
<e a="a">
some text
<j a="a">
<p>some different text</p>
</j>
</e>
<f a="a">
some text
<l a="a">some text</l>
<m a="a">some text</m>
</f>
<f b="b">
some text
<l a="a">some text</l>
<m a="a">some text</m>
</f>
<g a="a"><!-- The sibling "g" element of this element was removed because it was an exact duplicate -->
some text
<ab a="a">some text</ab>
<ay a="a">some text</ay>
</g>
<s a="a"/>
<t a="a">
some text
<aa a="a">some text</aa>
<az a="a">some text</az>
</t>
<t a="a">
some different text
<aa a="a">some text</aa>
<az a="a">some text</az>
</t>
<u a="a">
some text
<k a="a">some text</k>
<n a="a">some text</n>
</u>
<u a="a">
some text
<k b="b">some text</k>
<n a="a">some text</n>
</u>
<v a="a">
some text
<i a="a">some text</i>
<q a="a">some text</q>
</v>
<v a="a">
some text
<i a="a">some different text</i>
<q a="a">some text</q>
</v>
<x a="a" b="b" c="c"/>
</a>
<b>
<h a="a"/>
<r a="a"/>
</b>
<y a="a"/>
</z>
