At 2008-08-04 12:38 -0500, James Sulak wrote:
I have a sequence of nodes stored in a variable,

Perhaps you only have a tree and not a sequence of nodes.



and I am attempting to filter it using an XPath expression that 
includes the "except" operator.  However, it's not working like I expect it to.

...

I am attempting to filter it using this logic:



<olddata>

   <xsl:sequence 
select="$normalized_data[not(info/@action='delete')] except 
$normalized_data[info/@action='insert' or info/@action='modify']" />

</olddata>



I expect the returned sequence to include all of the nodes in 
$normalized_data that match the first condition and don't match the 
second condition (node 3).  What I am actually getting is all of the 
nodes in $normalized data.  Is there something about the "except" 
operator that I'm not understanding?

Nope!  Just a declaration issue I think.



You don't show your declaration of $normalized_data, so I'm going to 
assume you just made it a temporary tree and you didn't make it a 
variable of "data" elements.



My students of XSLT 2 who know XSLT 1 have had a problem with this 
when jumping on the temporary tree bandwagon, thinking they are 
getting variables of nodes, until I tell them about the use of the 
as= to direct the processor in the expected use of the variable.



I hope the example below helps illustrate the difference ... please 
let me know if this is not the source of your problem.  You can see 
the only difference is how I declared the nodes stored in the variable.



. . . . . . . . . . .  Ken




T:\ftemp>type james.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                version="2.0">

<xsl:output indent="yes"/>



<xsl:variable name="normalized_data">
<data id="1">
   <info action="delete" />
   <info action="insert" />
   <stuff />
</data>
<data id="2">
   <info action="insert" />
   <stuff />
</data>
<data id="3">
   <stuff />
</data>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="normalized_data_ken" as="element(data)+">
<data id="1">
   <info action="delete" />
   <info action="insert" />
   <stuff />
</data>
<data id="2">
   <info action="insert" />
   <stuff />
</data>
<data id="3">
   <stuff />
</data>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">

  <results>

    <james>

      <olddata>

        <xsl:sequence 
select="$normalized_data[not(info/@action='delete')] except 
$normalized_data[info/@action='insert' or info/@action='modify']" />

      </olddata>

    </james>

    <ken>

        <xsl:sequence 
select="$normalized_data_ken[not(info/@action='delete')] except 
$normalized_data_ken[info/@action='insert' or info/@action='modify']" />

    </ken>

  </results>

</xsl:template>



</xsl:stylesheet>
T:\ftemp>call xslt2 james.xsl james.xsl james.xml

T:\ftemp>type james.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<results>
   <james>
      <olddata>
         <data id="1">
            <info action="delete"/>
            <info action="insert"/>
            <stuff/>
         </data>
         <data id="2">
            <info action="insert"/>
            <stuff/>
         </data>
         <data id="3">
            <stuff/>
         </data>
      </olddata>
   </james>
   <ken>
      <data id="3">
         <stuff/>
      </data>
   </ken>
</results>
T:\ftemp>rem Done!


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