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XPath expression to select all XML child nodes except a specific list?

Answer 1

+3 A:

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"/>

ndim 2009-11-24 16:16:00

Answer 2

+2 A:

<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.

Tomalak 2009-11-24 16:50:11

Thanks for the explanation.

Jeff Meatball Yang 2009-11-24 19:33:46

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XPath expression to select all XML child nodes except a specific list?

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