Tell XSLT to use explicit template rather than wildcard - xslt

Question

I have the following template that will display a label, and then the value(s) following it.
<xsl:template match="*" mode="row">
<xsl:param name="title"/>
<tr>
<td width="180">
<xsl:value-of select="$title"/>: </td>
<td>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="./*">
<xsl:for-each select="./*">
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</td>
</tr>
Called in the following instances:
<xsl:apply-templates select="Details/Detail/DateOfBirth" mode="row">
<xsl:with-param name="title">Date of birth</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:apply-templates>
<xsl:apply-templates select="Addresses" mode="row">
<xsl:with-param name="title">Address(s)</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:apply-templates>
Now - I don't want to have specify the label name each time I apply the template, that should be able to be determined by the node name.
So I create templates for each node to be applied:
<xsl:template match="DateOfBirth">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="row">
<xsl:with-param name="title">Date Of Birth</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="Addresses">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="row">
<xsl:with-param name="title">Address(s)</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:apply-templates>
</xsl:template>
And call these with:
<xsl:apply-templates select="Details/Detail/DateOfBirth" mode="row">
</xsl:apply-templates>
<xsl:apply-templates select="Addresses" mode="row">
</xsl:apply-templates>
But it is applying the wildcard template, leaving the label empty. Is there a way to tell it to prefer the explicit template?

Answer 1

I think the reason it preferred the wildcard template is that you were applying templates with mode="row", and your new template rules were in the unnamed mode.
I would do this by creating another mode, with very simple template rules:
<xsl:template match="DateOfBirth" mode="label">Date of Birth</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="Addresses" mode="label">Address(es)</xsl:template>
and then instead of passing the parameter, you mode="row" template can do
<td width="180">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="label"/>
</td>
Incidentally your xsl:choose also seems amenable to templatization:
<xsl:template match="*[*]" mode="row">
<tr>
<td width="180">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="label"/>
</td>
<td>
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</td>
</tr>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="*[not(*)]" mode="row">
<tr>
<td width="180">
<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="label"/>
</td>
<td>
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</td>
</tr>
</xsl:template>

Answer 2

Here's the hack I did:
<xsl:template match="*" mode="row">
<xsl:param name="title"/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$title=''">
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<tr>
<td width="180">
<xsl:value-of select="$title"/>: </td>
<td>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="./*">
<xsl:for-each select="./*">
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<xsl:apply-templates select="."/>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</td>
</tr>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>
It checks if the title is blank, if it is (you're calling it for the first time), then it goes off and finds the explicit template for that node, which then re-calls it with the title.