XPath expression to select all XML child nodes except a specific list?
Solution 1
<xsl:for-each select="//cd/*[not(self::price or self::year)]">
But actually this is bad and unnecessarily complicated. Better:
<xsl:template match="catalog">
<html>
<body>
<xsl:apply-templates select="cd/*" />
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
<!-- this is an empty template to mute any unwanted elements -->
<xsl:template match="cd/price | cd/year" />
<!-- this is to output wanted elements -->
<xsl:template match="cd/*">
<xsl:text>Current node: </xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
<br />
</xsl:template>
Avoid <xsl:for-each>
. Almost all of the time it is the wrong tool and should be substituted by <xsl:apply-templates>
and <xsl:template>
.
The above works because of match expression specificity. match="cd/price | cd/year"
is more specific than match="cd/*"
, so it is the preferred template for cd/price
or cd/year
elements. Don't try to exclude nodes, let them come and handle them by discarding them.
Solution 2
I'd start experimenting with something like
"//cd/*[(name() != 'price') and (name() != 'year')]"
Or you just do normal recursive template matching with <xsl:apply-templates/>
, and then have empty templates for <price/>
and <year/>
elements:
<xsl:template match="price"/>
<xsl:template match="year"/>
Comments
-
Jeff Meatball Yang almost 2 years
Here's the sample data:
<catalog> <cd> <title>Empire Burlesque</title> <artist>Bob Dylan</artist> <country>USA</country> <customField1>Whatever</customField1> <customField2>Whatever</customField2> <customField3>Whatever</customField3> <company>Columbia</company> <price>10.90</price> <year>1985</year> </cd> <cd> <title>Hide your heart</title> <artist>Bonnie Tyler</artist> <country>UK</country> <customField1>Whatever</customField1> <customField2>Whatever</customField2> <company>CBS Records</company> <price>9.90</price> <year>1988</year> </cd> <cd> <title>Greatest Hits</title> <artist>Dolly Parton</artist> <country>USA</country> <customField1>Whatever</customField1> <company>RCA</company> <price>9.90</price> <year>1982</year> </cd> </catalog>
Say I want to select everything except the price and year elements. I would expect to write something like the below, which obviously doesn't work.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:template match="/"> <html> <body> <xsl:for-each select="//cd/* except (//cd/price|//cd/year)"> Current node: <xsl:value-of select="current()"/> <br /> </xsl:for-each> </body> </html> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>
Please help me find a way to exclude certain child elements.