How to write a predicate to match the dollar sign character?

Question

Given the following document:

<foo>
  <object>
    <property name="value">    <!-- MATCH THIS NODE -->
      <string>alpha</string>
    </property>
    <property name="name">
      <string>$A$</string>
    </property>
  </object>
  <object>
    <property name="value">
      <string>bravo</string>
    </property>
    <property name="name">
      <string>$B$</string>
    </property>
  </object>
</foo>

and a stylesheet based on the identity transform:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
  <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

  <!-- HAVING PROBLEMS HERE -->
  <xsl:template match="property[@name='value'][../property[@name='name']/string='$A$']">
    Replace with text!
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

What predicates would I use if I want to match node indicated on the original document when I need to key off the contents of the sibling property/string element (the string $A$)?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this is generic enough for your needs, but this should get you close:

property[following-sibling::property[1]/string = '$A$']

This matches the property node which where the next sibling property has a child string where the text equals "$A$"

This should work if you have the same template with two property nodes, but would need to be adjusted if your XML has more property nodes.

Answer 2

Try this:

propery[@name='value' and ../property[@name='name' and string = '$A$']]

Answer 3

For the sake of completeness, the "top-down" XPath:

/foo/object[property[@name='name']='$A$']/property[@name='value']

Though an XML structure like the following would make much more sense:

<foo>
  <object>
    <property name="$A$">
      <string>alpha</string>
    </property>
  </object>
  <object>
    <property name="$B$">
      <string>bravo</string>
    </property>
  </object>
</foo>

because you could do

/foo/object/property[@name='$A$']