What escape character for fn:replace function - xslt

I have to to change a bad char to a quotation mark but I can't escape this last one.
Doing this doesn't work
<xsl:value-of select="fn:replace(prog:intitules/prog:intitule_fr,'¿', '\'')"/>
it produces
net.sf.saxon.trans.XPathException: Unmatched quote in expression
Same error with double or triple escapes '\' or '\\'.
My editor refuses this alternative syntax:
<xsl:value-of select='fn:replace(prog:intitules/prog:intitule_fr,"¿", "'")'/>
Any idea ?
Bernard

Try it this way:
<xsl:value-of select='replace(input, "¿", "&apos;")'/>

In XPath 2.0+, you can escape an apostrophe within an apostrophe-delimited string literal by doubling it. So try:
''''
You need to think very carefully about escapes when you're using regular expressions within XPath within XSLT. Why does the character need escaping?
If it has a special meaning in regular expressions (for example '(') then use a backslash
If it isn't allowed because of XPath rules (like here), use XPath escaping (write 'O'Neil' as 'O''Neil' or "a="3"" as "a=""3""")
If it isn't allowed because of XML rules (e.g. "<"), use XML escaping (write < as <)
The reason this doesn't work:
<xsl:value-of select='fn:replace(prog:intitules/prog:intitule_fr,"¿", "'")'/>
is that the XML parser is treating the apostrophe within the string literal as marking the end of the value of the select attribute. So here you have an XML issue, and under rule 3 you therefore need to use XML escaping (&apos;)

Assuming your files are utf-8 encoded, you could you try a workaround, using the Unicode apostrophe character (hexadecimal 2BC) instead of quote (hexadecimal 27):
<xsl:value-of select="fn:replace(prog:intitules/prog:intitule_fr,'¿', 'ʼ')"/>
Edited: searching a little bit more, I discovered that switching ' and " and using the entity &apos; will get the same result, as michael.hor257k proposed meanwhile:
<xsl:value-of select='fn:replace(prog:intitules/prog:intitule_fr,"¿", "&apos;")'/>

Related

xslt 2.0 how replace $ by escaped dollar (for conversion to LaTeX)

I am new to XSLT. I googled extensively but couldn't figure out how to do the following:
I am transforming XML to LaTeX. Of course, LaTeX needs to escape characters such as $ and #. I tried the following in the replace function but it does not work. (They do work without the replace function.)
<xsl:template match="xyz:doc">
\subsubsection{<xsl:value-of select="replace( xyz:headline, '(\$)', '\$1' )"/>}
...
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="xyz:doc">
\subsubsection{<xsl:value-of select="replace( xyz:headline, '\$', '\$' )"/>}
...
</xsl:template>
Possible content to be escaped is:
"Locally defined field #931" or
"Locally defined subfield $b"
What am I doing wrong?
Many thanks for your answers!
If you want to replace a dollar symbol $ in the input with \$ in the output then use replace(xyz:headline, '\$', '\\\$').
If there are several characters that need the same escaping then replace(xyz:headline, '([$#])', '\\$1') should do.
Sample at http://xsltransform.net/bdxtqX/1

replace function doesn't work with '$' symbol

<xsl:value-of select="replace('$#test', '$#test', '111111111111111')" />
how to make this work?
If I try to not using '$' sign everything works
<xsl:value-of select="replace('$#test', '#test', '111111111111111')" />
Try <xsl:value-of select="replace('$#test', '\$#test', '111111111111111')" />, assuming you want to treat the dollar sign literally. As it is a meta character in the regular expression language used to match the end of a string or a line to treat it literally you need to escape it.
For quick reference you may refer http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/06/04/tr.html

XSLT/XPath quoting: XPath within an XPath-Function within XSLT

Here we're using double quotes at the XSLT level; single quotes at the XPath function level, but when we need to embed an XPath expression within the XPath function, how do we quote that?
<xsl:value-of select="document('price-list.xml','/im_prices/row/UPC_Code[text()='abc']"/>
^^^^^
(scroll to the right)
Not sure about that, I have always used the node-set form of:
<xsl:value-of select="document('price-list.xml')/im_prices/row/UPC_Code[text()='abc']"/>
but that may be vendor specific (however, have never known it not to work!)
The second argument of document() is a node-set, not a string, so the problem should not arise. However, there are of course other cases where it can arise.
In XSLT 2.0:
if you want to include the attribute delimiter in a string, escape it as " or &apos;
if you want to include the string delimiter in a string, double it as '' or "".
In XSLT 1.0, the second option is not available. You can get around it either
(a) by swapping the character used for the attribute delimiter and the string delimiter
(b) by using concat() to build the string

How can I translate ' into an apostrophe in xslt

The relevant parts of the code:
<xsl:variable name="apos">'</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="and" select='"'"' />
<xsl:value-of select="translate(products_name/node(),$and,$apos)"/>
I'm thinking this should be a simple thing and that the above code should work but it doesn't effect the output at all.
(I used variables because names cannot begin within an ampersand and using just an apostrophe brings up a compile error.)
I've tested the code to make sure the translate is working using strings and there are no errors there.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You are on the right track, but not yet there: Your problem is, that XSL is a language that itself is written using XML. For all XML languages, the parser automatically decodes XML entities. The XSLT engine only comes afterwards.
As a result, the XSLT engine neither does nor can distinguish whether you wrote ' or ' - it's the same. For your problem, this has two effects:
You have to use a variable containing the apostrope - this is because the apostrophe itself is reserved for string literals in expressions that may contain functions. Even for <xsl:value-of select="translate(products_name/node(),$and,''')"/>, the XML parser transforms the entity into an apostrophe, i.e. <xsl:value-of select="translate(products_name/node(),$and,''')"/>
You have to escape the ampersand used in the string you search for: for the XSL engine, the variable "and" contains the value ', i.e. you are replacing an apostrophe with an apostrophe.
Working solution:
<xsl:variable name="apos">'</xsl:variable>
<xsl:value-of select='translate(text(), "&#039;", $apos)'/>
Technically, there's no difference in any XML between &apos;, ' and ', they're different ways of representing exactly the same thing. Therefore, that translate call shouldn't do anything.
It depends on how you're transforming it, where that output is (attribute value or element?), and how the output is serialized to text, but your problem isn't with your XSLT.

How to express a string containing both apostrophes and quotes in XPath?

I'll spare you the details because they would be needlessly confusing. Long story short, I'm using XSLT 1.0 to generate XSL documents, I'm trying to compare a variable to a literal string, and that string may contain quotes and apostrophes.
For the sake of simplicity, let's say that this literal is composed of two characters: a quote followed by an apostrophe. In reality, it can be any text really. Is there a simpler way to do this:
<xsl:if test="$var = concat('"', "'")">
than this?
<xsl:variable name="str">"'</xsl:variable>
<xsl:if test="$var = $str">
I have checked XPath's specs and there doesn't seem to be a way to escape characters, so the following would not work as desired:
<xsl:if test="$var = '"&apos;'">
Thanks!
There's no way to do it neatly in XPath 1.0. In XPath 2.0, you can escape both kinds of quotes by doubling.
& quot;& amp;&(!)apos; -looks much better, but what did you want to get?
In anyway: once I have written application that deals with producing of Javascript over XSLT.
The same problem with huge number of & quot;,... we solved in 2 ways:
Declare global xsl:param, $q - looks shorter than & quot;
Use 'translate' XPath function, make assumption '!' - is a & quot;, # is a & amp; ..