johkar <nosendjunk@m...> writes:

> Thanks for the reply, I am still not quite getting why the rateCode is
> getting transformed into FCTR2 without the underscore.  You stated
> that rateCode "should translate left square bracket to underscore and
> omit any blanks or right square brackets"...why would you expect
> that...just trying to understand.

As I wrote in my previous note,

    The first argument is scanned character by character, and each
    character is tested to see if it appears anywhere in the second
    argument.  If it does not appear in the second argument, it's
    copied to the output string without change.  If it does appear in
    the second argument at position N, then it's replaced in the
    output by the character at position N of the third argument.  If
    the third argument is less than N characters long, the character
    is omitted from the output.

That was my attempt to explain why I would expect that.  If it
didn't help, let me try again.

The inner call to translate() has three arguments: 

  (1) the string "FCTR[   ]2"
  (2) the string "[ ]"
  (3) the string "_"

The function constructs an output string by walking through the input
string character by character and possibly adding something to the
output string.

Character 1:  "F".

  Look for an "F" in argument 2.  Find none.
  Place "F" in the output string, which is now "F".

Character 2:  "C".

  Look for a "C" in argument 2.  Find none.
  Place "C" in the output string, which is now "FC".

Character 3:  "T".

  Look for a "T" in argument 2.  Find none.
  Place "T" in the output string, which is now "FCT".

Character 4:  "R".

  Look for an "R" in argument 2.  Find none.
  Place "R" in the output string, which is now "FCTR".

Character 5:  "[".

  Look for an occurrence of "[" in argument 2.  Find one
  at position 1.  Look up the character in position 1
  of argument 3; find "_".  Add that character ("_")
  to the output string, which is now "FCTR_".

Character 6:  " ".

  Look for an occurrence of " " in argument 2.  Find one
  at position 2.  Look up the character in position 2
  of argument 3; discover that there isn't one (argument
  3 is one character long).  So add nothing to the
  output string; it remains "FCTR_".

Character 7:  " ".

  Look for an occurrence of " " in argument 2.  Find one
  at position 2.  Look up the character in position 2
  of argument 3; discover that there isn't one (argument
  3 is one character long).  So add nothing to the
  output string; it remains "FCTR_".

Character 8:  " ".

  Look for an occurrence of " " in argument 2.  Find one
  at position 2.  Look up the character in position 2
  of argument 3; discover that there isn't one (argument
  3 is one character long).  So add nothing to the
  output string; it remains "FCTR_".

Character 9:  "]".

  Look for an occurrence of "]" in argument 2.  Find one
  at position 3.  Look up the character in position 3
  of argument 3; discover that there isn't one (argument
  3 is one character long).  So add nothing to the
  output string; it remains "FCTR_".

Character 10:  "2".

  Look for an occurrence of "2" in argument 2.  Find none.
  So add "2" to the output string, which is now "FCTR_2".

End of argument 1: return the output string, now "FCTR_2".

The details for characters 5 through 9 should make clear that what
translate() may be expected to do with second and third arguments of
"[ ]" and "_" is to replace "[" with "_" and delete " " and "]".


> <rateCode>FCTR[   ]2</rateCode>
> <rateTag>0.04200</rateTag>
>
> transforms into
>
> <FCTR2>0.04200</FCTR2> without any underscore at all.
>
>
> <xsl:variable name="tag" select="translate(translate(rateCode/text
> (),'[ ]','_'),'.','__')"/>
> <xsl:element name="{$tag}">
>    <xsl:value-of select="rateTag/text()"/>
> </xsl:element>

Interesting.  When I cut and paste your code fragment into a
stylesheet and run it on your input, both xsltproc and Saxon give me

 <FCTR_2>0.04200</FCTR_2>

not 

 <FCTR2>0.04200</FCTR2>

Similar tests show that the XSLT processors in Safari, Opera,
and Firefox all produce "FCTR_2" not "FCTR2" from the input you
describe.

Two questions:  

(1) Are you sure that the code you quote is actually the code that is
producing the output you quote?  Try replacing 

  <xsl:variable name="tag" 
   select="translate(translate(rateCode/text(),'[ ]','_'),'.','__')"/>

with 

  <xsl:variable name="tag" select="hi_mom"/>

to see if your output is still <FCTR2>0.04200</FCTR2> or changes to
<hi_mom>0.04200</hi_mom>.

(2) If your output does change, indicating that the code you
quote really is the code doing the work, then I become curious:
What XSLT processor are you using?

HTH

Michael Sperberg-McQueen

-- 
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* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
* http://www.blackmesatech.com
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