XSLT transform element value to childs value

Question

My XML looks like this:

<element>
  <AttrValue someatt="a">
    <StyledElement>
      <Container />
      <StyledElement>
        <Paragraph />
        <StyledElement>
          <PlainText someValue="some Text" />
        </StyledElement>
      </StyledElement>
      <StyledElement>
        <Paragraph />
        <StyledElement>
          <PlainText TextValue="another Text" />
        </StyledElement>
      </StyledElement>
    </StyledElement>
  </AttrValue>
</element>

The output should look like this:

<element>
    <AttrValue someatt="a"> some Text , another Text (text from child nodes - seperated by comma) </AttrValue>
</element>

I have a multiple elements like this so maybe it should be with for-each?

Answer 1

I have assumed that the TextValue attribute of you second <PlainText> element is misstyped and actually is a someValue attribute.

Here is some XSLT that should do the job:

<xsl:template match="/element">
  <element>
    <xsl:for-each select="AttrValue">
      <AttrValue someatt="{@someatt}">
        <xsl:for-each select="//PlainText">
          <xsl:if test="position() != 0">, </xsl:if>
          <xsl:value-of select="@someValue"/>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </AttrValue>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </element>
</xsl:template>

This is basically a nested <xsl:for-each> loop. The only "trick" is how position() is used to place commas between text values.

Answer 2

<xsl:for-each> is not necessary for this. I recommend separate templates as the more readable alternative:

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

  <xsl:template match="element">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="AttrValue" />
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="AttrValue">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:copy-of select="@*" />
      <xsl:apply-templates select=".//PlainText/@*" />
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="PlainText/@*">
    <xsl:value-of select="." />
    <xsl:if test="position() &lt; last()">, </xsl:if>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Output with your source XML:

<element>
  <AttrValue someatt="a">some Text, another Text</AttrValue>
</element>