Piet Blok wrote:

> However, I just cannot get rid of an ugly xsl:if. In my solution I 
> select all elements and then I decide if the current element is a "new" 
> element. See below:
> 
> 
> <xsl:template match="/">
> <!-- select all Name elements -->
>     	<xsl:for-each select="//Name">
> <!-- test if this Name element is new, based on the first character -->
>     	    	<xsl:if test="not(substring(current(),1,1) = substring
> (preceding::Name[substring(.,1,1)=substring(current(),1,1)],1,1))">
> <!-- Display the first character -->
>     	    	    	<xsl:value-of select="substring(.,1,1)"/>
> <!-- Count occurences of element with the same starting character -->
>     	    	    	<xsl:value-of select="count(//Name[substring(.,1,1)
> =substring(current(),1,1)])"/>
>     	    	</xsl:if>
>     	</xsl:for-each>
> </xsl:template>
> 
> Can you think of any way to move the if structure into the select 
> clause?
> 
> In a way the problem seems to be that there are three contexts to deal 
> with: the context node (in this case the root node), the node that is 
> currently under investigation for selection and the node that is 
> compared to (between the square brackets).

First, if you can split the Name into several strings, that would be a 
good start. If you have control over the structure of the XML file, keep 
each piece of information separate. Otherwise you'll get into the same 
mess I was in when trying to make sense of MS Project XML files (gross!).

Then there is a funny thing about the test (changed the substring 
function to a() to make it obvious):
a(current) = a(preceding::Name[a(.)=a(current)])
So first you find a preceding Name which equals the current one, and 
then compare it to the current one? This sounds like double work. 
a(current) = a(preceding::Name) should be enough.

By changing according to the previous paragraphs, you would have 
something like a Name element and a New element, and you can do the 
for-each as follows (providing that the New element occurs after the Name):
<xsl:for-each select="//Name[not(./following-sibling::New = 
preceding::Name/following-sibling::New)]">

I haven't tested this, but perhaps someone with more XSL experience can 
point out any obvious errors.

-- 
Victor