XSL How To Sort? and Output As XML

[Jakos23]

Can any body help an XML newbie

I have the following XML File:

<markers>
<book ID="War of the Worlds">
<highlights>
<highlight>
<start>2001</start>
<end>2005</start>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>2380</start>
<end>2410</start>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>10</start>
<end>32</end>
</highlight>
</highlights>
<book ID="Help">
<highlights>
<highlight>
<start>12</start>
<end>30</end>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>2></start>
<end>6</end>
</highlight>
</highlights>
</highlights>
</markers>

Can any body show me how to sort the start element in ascending order using XSL and output as XML, all the example's I have seen output as html, when I need xml output.


Many Thanks

[vgarcia]

Sorting:

<xsl:for-each select="highlight">
<xsl:sort select="start"
data-type="number"
order="descending"/>
<xsl:value-of select="start"/>
</xsl:for-each>

Output as XML:

<xsl:stylesheet...>
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"/>
<xsl:template...>

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

[Jakos23]

I tried the following xsl stylesheet and it still not working

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlnssl="http://www.w3.org/1999/xsl/transform">
<xslutput method="xml" version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"/>
<xsl:template match="markers/book/highlights">


<xsl:for-each select="highlight">
<xsl:sort select="start"
data-type="number"
order="ascending"/>
<xsl:value-of select="start"/>
</xsl:for-each>


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

Can somebody show me where I'm going wrong?

[vinyl-junkie]

For starters, your XML file isn't well formed. For example:

<start>2001</start>
<end>2005</start>

Run your XML through a feed validator first, then worry about your XSL.

[Jakos23]

Sorry, that was just a quick and dirty post of xml the actual xml is here:

<?xml-stylesheet type="xml" href="sort.xsl"?>
<markers>
<book ID="War of the Worlds">
<highlights>
<highlight>
<start>2001</start>
<end>2005</end>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>2380</start>
<end>2410</end>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>10</start>
<end>32</end>
</highlight>
</highlights>
</book>
<book ID="Help">
<highlights>
<highlight>
<start>12</start>
<end>30</end>
</highlight>
<highlight>
<start>2</start>
<end>6</end>
</highlight>
</highlights>
</book>
</markers>

[vinyl-junkie]

Well, I managed to get something working last night but then I got too tired to try and figure out just what the differences were between your code and mine. However, I did note that one thing in particular seemed to make a difference. The top line of your XML file should read something like this:

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="sort.xsl"?>

The following is what I used for the stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"/>
<xsl:template match="markers/book/highlights">
<xsl:for-each select="highlight">
<xsl:sort select="start" data-type="number" order="ascending"/>
<xsl:value-of select="start"/><br />
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

One thing that I find odd though is that it doesn't appear to sort those numbers in ascending order, which I found very odd. Perhaps someone could explain just how this type of sort works?