XSLT Number test

Question

I am having a problem where the value of the $current variable came in as '6E144270003'. My original goal was to just test for a number, but '6E144270003' passed the number() test because it is a valid 'scientific notation' (as was pointed out to me here).

I need a valid test to allow data containing only integers (can include the decimal and minus sign) to equate to true and any other data to equate to false.

Should pass: 1234567890
Should pass: 123.45
Should pass: 123.5
Should pass: -123.45

 <xsl:if test="number($current) = number($current)">  
    <xsl:value-of select="$current"/>   
 </xsl:if>  

Answer 1

I am having a problem where the value of the $current variable came in as '6E144270003' and it failed in the Saxon 2.0 processor with an error of 'Cast failed, invalid lexical value - xs:double'.

I cannot repro this problem.

This transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"&gt;
 <xsl:variable name="current" select="'6E144270003'"/>
    <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:if test="number($current) = number($current)">
    <xsl:value-of select="$current"/>
 </xsl:if>

    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when run with SAXON 9.0.0.4, produces:

6E144270003

I'm unsure why this happened when it is not a number and also how to correct it. Basically if it is not a number I don't want to output it

The string "6E144270003" can be used as a number in XPath 2.0, because in XPath 2.0 the so called *scientific notation` is a valid way to represent a number.

This is one interesting example where the behavior of XSLT 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 is different.

UPDATE: The OP has indicated that he wants a test that will evaluate to false() if the string contains anything but digits.

This can be achieved best by a regular expression, or even:

translate($s, '0123456789', '') eq ''

UPDATE2: The OP changed his question again!!!

For the latest question here is the answer:

Use:

$s castable as xs:decimal

This transformation demonstrates the correctness of this method:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
 xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"&gt;
 <xsl:output method="text"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:sequence select=
      "for $s in ('1234567890',
                 '123.45',
                 '123.5',
                '-123.45',
                 '6E144270003'
                 )
       return
         if($s castable as xs:decimal)
           then $s
           else ()

      "/>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when this transformation is applied on any XML document (not used), the correct result is produced:

1234567890 123.45 123.5 -123.45