Sum of attributes after truncating a character from the value - xslt

Question

I have the following xml.
<xml>
<table>
<cols width="1.00*" />
<cols width="2.00*" />
<cols width="4.00*" />
<row><p>Hello</p></row>
</table>
<p>
Life is good.
</p>
</xml>
Explaination:
I need to read the column width from the above xml and display. But in some cases user specifies the width so less that the table columns overlap on each other.
Hence I thought to do this formula.
col1width=col1width/totalWidth*100;
This will give me the table width in % format so that the columns get distributed properly.
But I am not able to take a total count of all these attributes. My xslt just does not work. Please see the xslt below:
XSLT:
<xsl:template match="node()" mode="table">
<fo:table table-layout="fixed">
<fo:table-header>
<fo:table-row>
<xsl:for-each select="current()/cols">
<xsl:variable name="maxWidth"
select="number(substring-before(current()/table/cols/#width, '*')) + number(substring-before(following-sibling::cols/#width, '*'))" />
</xsl:for-each>
</fo:table-row>
</fo:table>
Solutions tried:
I have tried using sum function. But here, before summing, i have to
truncate the '*' character and convert to number and then add. Does
not work.
Written a recursive template to get the sum. I am getting the sum with this. But I am not able to return the total width from the
template. I guess xslt does not support returning of calculated
values. Below is the recursive xslt.
<xsl:template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:param name="total" select="0" />
<xsl:param name="totalCols" />
<xsl:param name="index" select="1" />
<xsl:if test="$index <= $totalCols">
<xsl:variable name="maxWidth"
select="$total + translate(current()/cols[$index]/#width, '*', '')" />
<xsl:call-template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:with-param name="total" select="$maxWidth" />
<xsl:with-param name="nodes" select="$totalCols" />
<xsl:with-param name="index" select="$index + 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
XSLT call:
<xsl:template name="main">
<xsl:variable name="maximumWidth">
<xsl:call-template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:with-param name="total" select="0" />
<xsl:with-param name="totalCols"
select="count(current()/cols)" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:variable>
</xsl:template>
Here, the variable is of type string and hence has no value.
Please help me with this problem. Also can suggest any other approach for table column width. I am generating pdf output using xsl fo. And my whole xslt is dynamic. I cannot have a direct path like node1/node2/node3.
Thank you.

Answer 1

You've got a couple of problems with your maximumTableWidth template to start with. Firstly, you should probably wrap the translate function in the number function
<xsl:variable name="maxWidth"
select="$total + number(translate(current()/cols[$index]/#width, '*', ''))" />
Secondly, you need to make sure you call it with the correct parameters. For your recursive call you set a parameter called nodes, when it should be totalCols
<xsl:with-param name="totalCols" select="$totalCols" />
But in terms of returning a value, all you need to do it use xsl:value-of to output the value, and your maximumWidth variable will then be set to that value. All you need to do is change the xsl:if in the template to an xsl:choose and output the value in the xsl:otherwise condition:
<xsl:template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:param name="total" select="0" />
<xsl:param name="totalCols" />
<xsl:param name="index" select="1" />
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$index <= $totalCols">
<xsl:variable name="maxWidth"
select="$total + number(translate(current()/cols[$index]/#width, '*', ''))" />
<xsl:call-template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:with-param name="total" select="$maxWidth" />
<xsl:with-param name="totalCols" select="$totalCols" />
<xsl:with-param name="index" select="$index + 1" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="$total" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
There is another way to write this template recursively. Instead of passing in the index, and incrementing it, pass in the cols element itself, and use following-sibling to iterate over them. Try this template instead
<xsl:template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:param name="col" />
<xsl:param name="total" select="0" />
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$col">
<xsl:variable name="maxWidth"
select="$total + number(translate($col/#width, '*', ''))" />
<xsl:call-template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:with-param name="total" select="$maxWidth" />
<xsl:with-param name="col" select="$col/following-sibling::cols[1]" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:value-of select="$total" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
You would call this like so:
<xsl:variable name="maximumWidth">
<xsl:call-template name="maximumTableWidth">
<xsl:with-param name="col" select="cols[1]" />
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:value-of select="$maximumWidth" />
EDIT: If you were able to use XSLT 2.0, then you can do away with the named template altogether, and just set the maximumWidth template to this
<xsl:variable name="maximumWidth" select="sum(cols/(number(translate(#width, '*', ''))))" />