James,



If this were my code, I'd be sorely tempted to encapsulate the logic 
in a function, if only to make it more legible and maintainable. This 
would also provide you a nice neat place to document it and its rationale.



Something like:



<xsl:function name="t:lettergroup" as="xs:string()">
  <xsl:param name="element" as="element()"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="translate(
    substring(normalize-space(lower-case($element)),1,1),
    'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345678[,+(.&gt;&lt;&amp;&amp;amp;',
    'aaaaaaggggggmmmmmmssssssss999999999---------') "/>
  <!-- emits 'a','g','s','9' or '-' depending on the first
       letter of the value of $element, grouped into a-f, g-l, m-r,
       s-z, 0-9, or a punctuation mark (case insensitive) -->
</xsl:function>

Then



<xsl:for-each-group select="$persNamesWithoutKey"
                    group-by="t:lettergroup(.)">...

BTW, why the double-escaping of '&amp;amp;'? I can't see how that 
would do anything for you. The processor will see only the string '& 
a m p ;' here, which translate() will decompose into characters.



Cheers,
Wendell

At 08:02 AM 9/8/2008, you wrote:
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 14:19, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I want to break it into 5 files for punctuation&numbers, a-f,
>> g-l, m-r, and s-z.
>
> Part of the solution might be to use a grouping key created using
>
> translate(., 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', 'aaaaaaggggggmmmmmmssssssss')
>

Having had a chance to play with this on the outer xsl:for-each-group I did:



 <xsl:for-each-group select="$persNamesWithoutKey"
group-by="translate(substring(normalize-space(lower-case(.)),1,1),'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345678[,+(.&gt;&lt;&amp;&amp;amp;
', 'aaaaaaggggggmmmmmmssssssss999999999---------') ">

and with some minor cosmetic changes through the rest that did it
absolutely perfectly for my needs.

I post this just for posterity (i.e. anyone else searching for a
similar answer and in several months when I've forgotten how/why I did
something like this!)   ;-)

Many thanks,



-James




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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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