Display XML diferent in JSF (using XSLT or some another suggestion)

Question

Hello everybody!

At runtime I receive xml document and I want to display it somehow different in JSF. For example:

This:

<invoker.ArrayOfDictionary>
  <dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>gcide</id>
      <name>The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>wn</id>
      <name>WordNet (r) 2.0</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>moby-thes</id>
      <name>Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>

in this:

invoker.ArrayOfDictionary:
  dictionary:
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:gcide
      name:The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:wn
      name:WordNet (r) 2.0
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:moby-thes
      name:Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

I was thinking to do this with XSLT transformation. Some guidelines how to start with xslt? Or maybe you have another idea for this?

SOLVED:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:fn="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions"&gt;
        <xsl:output method="text" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
    <xsl:variable name="vNL" select="'&#xA;'"/>
    <xsl:variable name="vSpaces" select="'          '"/>
    <xsl:template match="*">
       <xsl:value-of select="concat(
    $vNL,
    substring($vSpaces,1,count(ancestor::node())),
    $startBold,
    name(),
    ':')"/>
       <xsl:apply-templates/>
     </xsl:template>
    </xsl:stylesheet>

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

This transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
 xmlns:my="my:my"
>
 <xsl:output method="text"/>

 <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

 <my:offsets>
   <offset value="0">
     <element name="invoker.ArrayOfDictionary"/>
   </offset>
   <offset value="2">
     <element name="dictionary"/>
   </offset>
   <offset value="4">
     <element name="invoker.Dictionary"/>
   </offset>
   <offset value="6">
     <element name="name"/>
     <element name="id"/>
   </offset>
 </my:offsets>

 <xsl:variable name="vOffsets"
      select="document('')/*/my:offsets"/>

 <xsl:variable name="vNL" select="'&#xA;'"/>

 <xsl:variable name="vSpaces"
      select="'          '"/>

 <xsl:template match="*">
   <xsl:variable name="vthisOffset" select=
   "$vOffsets/*
          [element/@name
          =
           name(current())
           ]
            /@value
   "/>
   <xsl:value-of select=
   "concat($vNL,
           substring($vSpaces,1,$vthisOffset),
           name(),
           ':'
           )"
   />
   <xsl:apply-templates/>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on the provided XML document (corrected to be well-formed):

<invoker.ArrayOfDictionary>
  <dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>gcide</id>
      <name>The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>wn</id>
      <name>WordNet (r) 2.0</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>
    <invoker.Dictionary>
      <id>moby-thes</id>
      <name>Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0</name>
    </invoker.Dictionary>
  </dictionary>
</invoker.ArrayOfDictionary>

produces the wanted, correct result:

invoker.ArrayOfDictionary:
  dictionary:
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:gcide
      name:The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:wn
      name:WordNet (r) 2.0
    invoker.Dictionary:
      id:moby-thes
      name:Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

Do note:

1. The use of method="text" in the <xsl:output> instruction.

2. All offsets are defined for all elements in a convenient tree, which can be maintained in a separate file and modified without having to touch the XSLT code.